A Little Bit Wicked
by Junamrsgrl
Summary: My first fic! Starts out H/B, eventually G/B. Follows current S2 storyline loosely with my own ideas/interpretations thrown in...We know what happened, but what went unsaid? Please leave feedback!
1. A Little Bit Wicked

Betty sat on the couch, comfortably nestled next to Henry and stared pensively at her bowl of mint chocolate chip. The Wizard of Oz was playing on the TV- hence the green ice cream. She supposed in an off-handedly amused sort of way that this was Henry's attempt to make up for that disaster at the theatre a few weeks before.

And what a spectacular disaster it had been, she reflected. What was supposed to be this dream date with Henry- their first attempt at acknowledging their relationship publicly- had turned into the exact opposite. A veritable nightmare on many levels, in fact.

Looking back on it now, she thought there was probably something to the fact that the tickets had been near impossible to get on all counts. At the time, she had just chalked it up to karma kicking her in the ass, maybe for being kind of mean to Gio. Although he _had_ deserved it.

First she had been striking out at the box office when Daniel had materialized out of nowhere and had (correctly) assumed that she was making plans to go out with Henry, who was kind of in Daniel's dog-house at that moment. She had somehow successfully convinced him otherwise, with the end result being that he had given _**her**_ tickets to the freaking sandwich guy- although as much as it rankled, she had to admit that one was probably her fault since she might have….misled Daniel about her date. When she tried to get the tickets back, Gio had been his normal insufferable self and in the end, had walked off with both her tickets, thus leaving her to procure more from Amanda at a ridiculously high price. Upon arriving at the theatre, she had immediately run into Gio and (she was sorry she had to say it) his obnoxiously rude 11 year old sister. To top it off she got stuck sitting with him after all that anyway when Daniel unexpectedly showed up with tickets for seats right next to theirs. Why Gio had continued to keep up the charade honestly baffled her….she entertained the notion that he might just be slightly sadistic. Meanwhile, poor Henry had been saddled with the kid and forced to watch Betty's fake boyfriend put the moves on his girlfriend for the sake of the show.

She thought she should feel much worse about that honestly. At first, she did. She had been just as horrified as Henry. But every time her mind dredged the memory up (which was a **lot** more than necessary) she tried in vain to not remember the feel of Gio's arm around her shoulder, or his warm breath on her neck as he whispered into her ear when she asked him what he thought he was doing. Or the somewhat intoxicating scent of him…a mix of leather, his deodorant or cologne- whichever it was, and the smell of his clothes.

Why _why_ _**why**_ did Daniel have to decide to see 'Wicked' that night? She wondered for what must be the billionth time.

Eventually, Gio's 'familiarity with her person,' as Henry had quite angrily put it, resulted in not only them being discovered by Daniel (who she had assured she was absolutely **not** dating Henry, and would have been bad enough) but by everyone in the house _**and**_ eviction from the premises with a lifetime ban from that particular show.

That was a little steep, she thought to herself; after all it had been completely an accident, and really- wasn't being goggled at and gossiped about by half of New York bad enough?!

Her thoughts were completely disrupted by a noise on the TV. "I'll get you my pretty, and you little dog too," the wicked witch cackled onscreen. Betty wondered grimly if the iconic line was being directed at her. It sure felt like it. Normally she really loved this movie- munchkins, sparkly magic slippers, and multi-colored horses…what's not to love? Tonight though, she was dismayed to find that she had other thoughts weighing heavily on her mind. Thoughts that she was slightly ashamed of, because even though it was Henry's apartment, Henry's living room and Henry's arms wrapped around her, her thoughts were not on Henry at all. Or wicked witches or little dogs in any incarnation. Betty couldn't figure out what her problem was- she had never had this problem before, but tonight she was having a horribly hard time casting Gio from her thoughts even while she was practically sitting on top of another man. Worse, a man who happened to be her boyfriend, and as such deserved to be foremost on her mind, she thought a bit guiltily.

She was actually finding it hard to believe that Henry couldn't hear the traitorous thoughts in her head, given her proximity. She was also extremely relieved that he couldn't. Because he would **not** be happy, and to tell the truth, she wasn't overly happy with her own thought train of late. Even going over that ill-fated night in her head and trying to focus on all the ways it had disappointed, she knew that the worst part was….that all of that wasn't really the worst part.

Lying to Daniel about Henry had been dumb. Picking a fight with Gio over her tickets had been stupid. Letting Gio go along with the game and thinking nothing would change had been a mistake of monumental proportions.

From the moment his warm hand enveloped hers in the lobby, in front of Henry no less, she had been uncomfortably…._aware_…of him in a way she never had before. She felt like she was sitting too close and the theatre felt kind of warm. It was hard to concentrate on the action onstage. She started noticing things like his smell, and his breathing, and just how **right** it felt, even if it was scaring the hell out of her. Now she was thinking that it was somewhat ironic that she had technically been 'on a date' with Gio, by default, before Henry, for all intents and purposes. Annoying Gio. Quacking Gio. Despite herself, it made her smile.

As if on cue, Henry stopped the movie and shifted towards her. "Hey beautiful, penny for your thoughts? They must be good from the looks of the smile on your face," he asked with a somewhat mischievous look on his face. She jumped at his address and her heartbeat raced. Was that accusation she heard in his voice? _Oh God…I'm caught. He knows_.

"Wow," he said with a smile. "You must really be into the movie tonight…it was clearly an inspired choice. You jumped a mile high."

She laughed nervously on the outside, and felt rather like someone was smothering her in concrete on the inside. Fleetingly, she had wondered if it was possible to feel any guiltier, and Henry had sure stepped up to the plate and knocked it clear out of the park.

He smiled again and started to get up, holding out his empty bowl. "I'm getting some more- you want some?"

Now completely dislodged from her (_wholly inappropriate_, she thought) reverie, color had started to bloom high on her cheekbones.

"Hey, you look warm- want me to open a window?" Henry asked, noticing her cheeks. She was warm all right, and shamefully it had not a thing to do with anything in this room. "Wha..? Oh no, thank you," she said.

"Is that a no to the ice cream or the window?" Henry teased. "Wake up, daydreamer."

Betty blushed even more furiously now- if Henry only knew what she was dreaming about, he wouldn't be in such good humor. She looked away from him quickly and glanced down into her now fully melted bowl of ice cream.

"Ah…no more ice cream, thanks. If you wouldn't mind the window though…" she hedged, trying to rein in her discomfort and keep Henry from getting suspicious.

_Great, now I'm getting paranoid. Damn Gio_.

"Anything for my Betty," Henry said as he got up, kissed the top of her head and walked out of the room. _Sure- drive that nail in a little deeper, she thought_. Betty smiled back weakly and watched Henry go. As soon as he was out of sight, she let out a deep breath and dropped her head into her hands.

"Betty!" she scolded herself. "What are you thinking?! Get it together!"

Henry popped his head back in and said "Are you talking to me?" He wore an expression that was something between perplexed and bemused.

She let out another nervous giggle and blurted out, "Oh no! Something tickled my arm and it felt like…a feather."

He looked at her for a minute, the perplexed look fully winning out this time, but then shrugged and said, "oh, ok," as his head disappeared from view again.

She fell back against the pillows and wondered how she would make it through the rest of the evening. She got up, went into the bathroom, and locked the door behind her. She sagged against the door for a minute, then walked over to the mirror and glared at herself.

"Ok, now that's enough of that now," she scolded her reflection. She turned the cold water on and splashed a little on her face. "Gio's not sitting around thinking about you, so stop thinking about him. You have a perfectly wonderful boyfriend!"

Just thinking about the fact that she _was_ thinking about him made her blush again. She gave herself a little shake, made an exasperated sound, smoothed her hair and skirt, and walked back out into the living room. Henry didn't seem to notice that she was gone- he had turned the movie back on and was commenting to himself on the improbability of multi-colored horses.

The sneaky voice in her head said, "Gio would have waited for you…" For the merest fraction of a second, she wondered if she could leave the apartment without him noticing; maybe go get a sandwich…._GAH!_

She hung her head in something like defeat and glanced at the clock. Only 4 hours to get through….


	2. The Following Week

**Disclaimer: No affiliation with Ugly Betty, for entertainment purposes only!**

**A/N: For those of you who may be mechanically skilled, I am not. So I made all that stuff up. It may or may not be accurate. But it worked in the plot. : ) **

**Please leave feedback!**

**--**

**_The following week…_**

Betty watched Hilda leave the Mode offices, taking half of the supply closet with her.

_Why had she just done that?_ Betty mentally groaned.

Heaving out a sigh, she turned around and made her way back to her desk. She was all for Hilda starting her own business and helping in any way she could, but she had the distinct feeling that volunteering Gio to help wasn't a very good idea. Definitely wasn't going to help her cause any. After that interminable night at Henry's apartment last week, she had been keeping a relatively low profile where Gio was concerned. She wasn't avoiding him really, although she privately owned that she might have let him believe that she was angrier with him over _that_ night than she really was to keep their interactions at a minimum. She still waved to him if she saw him in the building …before scurrying into the ladies room. Henry had been really hurt by the whole situation and it killed her to think she had done that, so she thought it better to stay under the radar, so to speak. Besides, she just hadn't been hungry for his sandwiches lately. _Which was a big fat lie of the first order. _The smiling pickle didn't help either- when you felt like you had to explain yourself to a napkin, you had issues. After some stern self-lecturing, she had finally relegated him to the 'friends-but-more-like-acquaintances' compartment of her life, and she would stick to that, damn it.

_Acquaintances don't have a problem speaking to each other on the phone or asking for small favors_, a snide voice needled into her thoughts. In response, she sat down at her desk and stared at the phone as if it had suddenly grown a forked tail and was sporting cloven hooves.

_Oh Hilda, why do you have to make my life so hard sometimes?_

She immediately felt bad for thinking that way about her only sister, who was somewhat self-absorbed, it was true, but was really a great person with a heart of gold when it came down to it. And she knew how excited Hilda was about opening her salon-it was the first time Betty had seen her really come back to life again since Santos had died. She had just thrown it out there, asking for Gio's help, and Betty had found herself agreeing before she even stopped to think about it. What was it Hilda had said? _"Are you still hating him now or what?"_

She bristled slightly at that- of course she didn't hate Gio. He could be annoying, yes. Definitely condescending. A know-it-all. But that didn't mean that she hated him. And she supposed she had wrongly taken it out on him after what she though of now as 'The Debacle." Although she privately admitted she might not have gotten as defensive if he hadn't gone and stirred up emotions better left elsewhere. And unwittingly too. That was almost insulting.

But she did like him. A little too much actually, for her to be comfortable with. And Henry had _not_ been favorably impressed the night he met Gio. It just seemed better all around to remain…acquaintances…rather than friends. She let out a sigh and picked up the receiver. There was no reason not to ask a good acquaintance a small favor, and she had promised Hilda. She'd even stop at his deli for lunch a few times to make up for it.

_Oh God, what was he going to think of her??_

Squaring her shoulders and taking a deep breath, she dialed his number.

--

Gio was, in fact, not thinking about Betty at all. At the current moment, he was mucking around in the engine of his van and working his way up to a serious mad. The timing belt had gone on the van and what should have taken ten minutes to fix had actually turned into a half day of alternating between being under the hood, occasionally underneath the entire damned piece of shit, and the parts store up the street. Once he had opened it up and started messing around, he realized that the flywheel wasn't working right, the battery was corroded, and the radiator was leaking.

"Sonofabitch!" he yelled, a dark expression settling on his face. He disgustedly kicked a couple of wayward tools littering the ground and backed away from the cursed thing. He really didn't have the time, money or patience for this, in that order.

He sat on the stoop of his brownstone and surveyed the scene. The van was jacked up on one side, the driver's side door hanging open. The hood was propped up and tools were strewn haphazardly along the ground, occasionally joined by some oil-stained rags. He looked down at his hands to ascertain how much engine grease he was sporting. He made another disgusted noise when he got a look at his fingernails. He didn't mind getting his hands dirty every now and then, but how was he supposed to run a food establishment when it looked like all the engine oil in Queens was beneath his nails? It would take him an hour just to scrub all this shit off.

Giving in to his frustration, he wiped his hands off on his jeans as best he could before running them through his hair. He pondered the last six hours and thought morosely that it was days like these that caused people to take up smoking. Or drinking. Or both. He heaved out a heartfelt sigh and stood up, stretching as he did so. His muscles were protesting the abuse of getting up and down repeatedly and hunching over incessantly.

Absently massaging his bunched neck muscles and wishing for a cold beer, he gave the van one last dirty look and seriously considered the benefits of walking. Unfortunately, the van was the easiest way into Manhattan and he needed it for deliveries besides. Wishing he was anywhere but here, he got back down under the engine to finish up with the damn timing belt.

No sooner had he gotten down into position and picked up his wrench did his phone go off. If this was his damned cousin trying to get him to man the carriage for tourists this weekend, _again_, he was going to go off on him. Maurizo didn't pay him nearly enough to deal with tourists gawking at him like he'd just stepped off the boat, and being visibly (sometimes vocally) disappointed that he spoke English, and didn't even sound stereotypically Italian.

_Yeah, welcome to America._

Why his cousin didn't just hire dependable help, he didn't know. Surely even in NYC there had to be a decent person or two lurking about. He really didn't have the time for it- he had just opened his own business a few weeks ago and was practically living there. He wasn't about to desert it in its infancy to be treated like an immigrant in the 1800's. _Tourists_, he thought disgustedly.

The phone was still ringing. He briefly closed his eyes and muttered a few choice words in Italian in the direction of the phone- the only bit of the language he had ever picked up since his parents were both second generation and his grandparents only used the home language when fighting with each other. He smirked to himself- wouldn't the tourists be surprised if he ever treated them to the little Italian he actually knew.

The phone stopped ringing. Made the voicemail alert noise.

"Yeah, hold your breath waiting for me to call you back," he muttered, returning to the task at hand.

The damn phone started ringing again.

"You gotta be effing kidding me!" he practically growled. He was _**not**_ in the mood today.

He thrust his hand out from under the van and groped around blindly for the phone as he muttered to himself. "Gonna kill him…"

Gio flipped the phone open and shoved it straight to his ear.

"Listen Maury, I already told you ten times I can't! How many more…Whoa. Betty. Hi."

Caught off guard, he struggled to sit up, which achieved nothing more than him nearly knocking himself out on the undercarriage of the van.

Despite how horrible his day had been, a passerby might have mistaken him for a relatively happy man if judging based on the brilliant smile that lit his face at the sound of her voice.

Not that he was aware of it.

--

"So Suarez, what's up?" the familiar voice drawled lazily out of the receiver. Betty took a deep breath (being startled to find that she had been holding it) and tried to concentrate on slowing her heart rate down. She gripped the receiver a little tighter to keep hold of it- for some reason her hands were getting sticky.

_Not good. Not good. AcquaintancesAcquaintancesAcqaintances._

"Hi…uh,Gio. It's Betty," she started. "Oh wait, you already know that."

She felt like an idiot. He didn't say anything. She could almost_ feel_ the level of his amusement at her expense through the phone.

_This is ridiculous._

"Ok, start again. Sorry if I'm interrupting something. You sounded like you were expecting…someone else."

"Oh, yeah. Sorry 'bout that. Thought it was my cousin. So…does this mean you're done being mad at me for no reason?" he asked.

Even though she knew it was true, she still got slightly indignant that he would say so.

"Excuse me Gio, I was….I _am_ so not mad at you for no reason! You totally killed my special date night! You got us kicked out of the theatre, and I don't even think I need to mention how upset you made Henry when you put your arm around me!"

Interesting choice of words, Gio thought. Upset Henry. Not her. He had her annoyed now- this was the Betty he liked. Grinning to himself, he mentally geared up for the game.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa… Hold it right there! I ruined your special night? How about you ruined mine? I was perfectly prepared to enjoy a night on Broadway with my sister when you showed up and started dictating who was gonna sit where. You chose to sit with me," he reminded her.

"Well I was trying to…to…." She started hotly, and broke off.

He gave it a minute.

"Trying to do what?" he coerced.

She made the cutest little noise of exasperation and went a different route, ignoring that question completely.

"You're the one whole stole _**my**_ tickets! How could I have ruined your night, which I might remind you that you never would have had without me, hmm?" she finished huffily.

He chose to wisely refrain from comment.

"You didn't have to act like that anyway," she added petulantly a minute later.

"Act like what?" God, he loved provoking her.

"Gio!" she yelled. "You know like what! Like you were…" her voice dropped to a whisper here…"my boyfriend or something."

His grin got even wider. He'd bet anything she was trying to sneak covert glances around her desk to make sure no one could hear her.

"But Betty, I was your boyfriend. That's what you told Daniel," he reminded her. "Had to make sure I was getting my part right…"

"Oh! You…you…" she sputtered.

It had to be some type of cardinal sin for him to be enjoying this so much.

"Besides, who knew Egg Salad was going to overreact like that?" he goaded even further.

Silence.

_Well that's disappointing._

"Gio?" she finally asked.

Uh-oh, she sounded serious now. "Yeah…?" he asked warily.

"Why did you do it?" Betty regretted the words the minute they left her mouth. She hadn't meant to initiate such a …_personal_…conversation with him. But she had to know.

"Why did I do what?" he repeated dumbly, pretending to not understand the question.

And he did understand the question. All of it, that is. It wasn't just "Why did you

refuse to give me my tickets?" or "Why did you put your arm or around me?" or "Why did you go along with that whole charade?" It was all of those questions, plus some. Honestly, he didn't know the answer to that yet. But he was pretty sure even if he did, he wasn't quite willing to share. If she was looking for an admission to something, she wasn't getting it out of him. He considered the turn in the conversation. She had effectively managed to put him on the defensive with five words, and it was making him slightly uncomfortable.

"Gio, I know you know what I mean," she pressed.

_Tenacious. How could you not appreciate that in a woman?_

He faltered for a minute, but his normal glib self recovered quickly.

"Well, see, the thing is, I know you were only using that whole ploy as an excuse to go out with me, so I thought I'd humor you. You know, being a good friend and all."

He made sure that sounded extra cocky- it was guaranteed to divert the topic.

"Whatever, Gio," she said, rolling her eyes and trying really hard not to smile, because Gio was the type of guy who could literally hear a smile on the phone.

"I already have a perfectly wonderful boyfriend," she said primly.

That sobered him up.

"Yeah," he said softly. "I know." No point lingering there. "So why did you really call me Betty?" he asked. "I'm sure it wasn't just to pick a fight."

"No, no. I didn't want to do that at all." She sighed audibly. "Look, I'm sorry for blaming what happened at the theatre on you. I know it wasn't your fault that we got kicked out."

"Apology accepted. I shouldn't have given you such a problem about the tickets. Am I forgiven?"

"Yeah, I guess so…anyway, thanks for volunteering to be my fake boyfriend, even though that didn't work out…." A few seconds of silence. "While I've got you on the phone, I was wondering if you could do me a favor? Or rather do a favor for my sister?" Betty asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

"Your sister, huh? Is she hot?" he asked.

"Gio! Stop it!" Betty shouted.

"Alright, alright. Don't get your panties in a twist…I was just joking, y'know. How can I be of service to you ladies?" he affected an overly outrageous polite tone.

"Well, see, she's starting her own salon, and she got a second-hand shampoo sink, but we don't have any way to get it to our house. We were wondering if you could use your van and pick it up for us?" Betty asked hopefully.

"Sure, I could do that. Just hook me up with the time and the place, and I'm your guy," he said.

"Thank you so much, Gio. Do you want some gas money or something?"

"Nah, don't worry about it," he said.

"Well, ok if you're sure…We really do appreciate it," Betty said sincerely. She gave him the address where he could pick the sink up, directions to her house and what time to meet them there.

"Well, ok," Betty said. "Thanks again. I guess I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah, I guess you will Suarez. I can't believe you're bringing me home to meet the family already," he joked.

Betty scoffed. "Bye Gio," she said pointedly.

"Bye, Betty….uh, hey Betty?"

"Yeah?"

"For what it's worth, I really had a good time at the theatre."

"Yeah, I bet you did," she said wryly. "See you tomorrow." She hung up the phone.

Gio heard the call disconnect and sat against the bumper of his van, looking at his phone. After a minute, he put it in his pocket, and looked around him.

_Oh yeah, the van…_

He guessed he had his work cut out for him.


	3. Shampoo Sinks and Salsa

**A/N: not affiliated with Ugly Betty or its characters (except that I love them!)**

**This chapter has been broken into 2 sections partly to keep it at a readable length, and partly because this as far as I've gotten : ) It does contain transcripted dialogue from part of B4B, just to warn you. Enjoy! **

**Please leave some love if you like it...**

--

**_Notice of Revision! A very helpful fan brought to my attention that I inadvertently wrote Justin as going to school on a Saturday (Sorry Justin!)...Basically I wasn't paying attention and threw him in for some extra Gio interaction. The 'sitch' has been corrected for continuity and thank you so much to said (anonymous) fan for pointing it out! _**

**: ) **

--

The next morning, a van pulled up to the curb in front of the Suarez house. Its lone occupant got out and walked up the sidewalk to the front door.

For a minute, Gio surveyed the outside of the house. It looked like a Betty house, he decided. Unassuming. Not pretentious. Quaint and homey. He caught sight of the brightly colored curtains through the window and noticed the welcome mat that proclaimed ¡Bienvenidos! He wondered what the people from Mode would say if they ever saw it. Smiling to himself, he knocked on the front door. A good-looking boy of about 12 opened it.

"Can I help you?" he asked Gio in a way that made him feel like he was being thoroughly dissected. He gave an amused nod of his head and said, "Hi, I'm looking for Betty." He peered curiously past the boy farther into the house. The boy, noticing the movement of his eyes, shut the door a little, looking for all the world as if he was guarding the house from an evil intruder.

At the exact same time, a voice bellowed from somewhere in the house. "JUSTIN! Where are you? Hay Dios mio, if you've got my manicure scissors again, I'm gonna kill you…"

Justin, presumably, turned around and bellowed back, "There's a guy at the door asking for Aunt Betty. It's not Henry. What should I tell him?"

Gio addressed the boy in an amused fashion. "If your…ah, Aunt Betty…isn't around, maybe I can talk to her sister?"

Justin gave him a deadpan stare. "Wow, you move quick," he commented. Then he turned around and yelled back into the house, "MOM! Now he's asking for you!"

Gio heard a racket coming from off to the right and a female voice that was decidedly not Betty's. "Me?! Who is it?" Hilda asked as she crashed down the stairs in her normal excitable state. Thoughts of manicure scissors and the imminent deaths of little boys skipped right out of her head at hearing there was a man at the door asking for her.

Gio stood in the doorway with a little smile on his face. These people amused him- they were somewhat loud and obnoxious and kind of reminded him of his own family when he was growing up. Hilda finally appeared in the doorway behind Justin.

_This was Betty's sister? _And this boy's mother, apparently. She and Betty were as different looking as night and day. He briefly wondered if they had the same parents.

"Can I help….oooh," she said, catching a glimpse of Gio for the first time. "Justin, honey, don't you have a friend's house to go to or something?" she said absently, without taking her eyes off Gio.

Justin gave his mother a look of supreme disdain and rolled his eyes. He turned and disappeared into the house. Gio tried to hide a smile.

"So what can I do for you? Are you lost or something?" she asked, striking a pose unconsciously in the doorway. Gio got the distinct feeling that he was being checked out and that she was liking what she saw. This amused him even more. He was confident enough to acknowledge that he was appreciated by women. Well, most women anyway.

_Definitely like night and day_.

He held out his hand for a handshake and Hilda took it, holding onto it for an extra second. Just then, Justin came barreling out from behind Hilda, forcing her to let go of Gio's hand as he pushed his way between them.

"Bye, Mom," he said, giving Gio a look of annoyance. _Jury definitely wasn't in here_, thought Gio. Ah, well- he couldn't fault the kid for taking care of his mother. He guessed it probably meant that Dad was ancient history.

Hilda snapped out of the trance. "Excuse me mijo, just where do you think you're going?" she interrogated Justin.

He looked at Gio pointedly and said rather acerbically, "A friend's house...or something."

Hilda's attention entirely focused on him now, she gave him her best 'Really...' look and crossed her arms. "What...?" he cajoled. "I'm just kidding. Grandpa needs some milk. He told me to go to the corner store." As if to emphasize this, he held up a couple dollars.

Hilda's expression softened a bit. She grabbed Justin's arm and kissed him on the top of the head. "Ok, go get the milk for Papi, but you watch where you're going, you hear me?" she yelled after him, since he'd already started walking away.

Gio watched the scene quietly. He was kind of a sucker for sentiment, although not many people knew that. He made a mental note to call his mother when he got home today.

After Justin's exit, he turned back to Hilda. "I'm Gio. Betty's friend," he offered. At her somewhat blank look, he said, "I've got a shampoo sink…?" He gestured to his van. "For Betty's sister…?" he said somewhat apologetically, for being ignorant of said sister's name. "Maybe that's you?" he asked, wondering if Betty was hiding any other sisters and what they would be like.

Instantaneously, the woman in the door transformed into a little girl, jumping up and down and clapping her hands.

"Ooooh! My sink!" she cried excitedly. Gio chuckled- her smile was a little infectious.

"I'm Hilda, by the way…..BETTY!" She turned around and bellowed, much like her son had done, in the direction of the upstairs. "Get up! Your little friend with the van is here with my sink! You promised you would help!"

Gio couldn't help but laugh- this family was seriously something else.

Hilda turned back to the door and smile beatifically at him, striking that pose again as she did so. She looked at him for a minute before he finally said, "Should I go get it?" gesturing to the van once more.

Hilda jumped again and met his gaze. "Oh yeah, the sink…Thank you so much! Do you need any help?"

Gio looked at Hilda's slight form and doubted if she had ever lifted anything heavier than a hairdryer, especially with those nails, but he was amused that she asked.

"Nah, I got it, if you'll just point me in the right direction…" he said with a smile.

"Oh, right," she said. She gestured to a doorway across the room and said, "That's the salon. I'll meet you in there…I'm gonna go see what's taking Betty so long."

On this note, she turned around and positively sprinted up the stairs yelling "BETTY!"

He shook his head again, and chuckled to himself. _Night and Day._

_--_

Betty was just stepping out of the shower when Hilda came crashing through the bathroom door.

"Hilda!" Betty shouted. "A little privacy, please?!" She yelled as she finished wrapping the towel around herself.

"Betty, you have to hurry. Your little friend with the van is here," Hilda said quickly.

"Who, Gio?" Betty asked. Her pulse quickened and she looked warily at the door as if expecting him to come crashing in on Hilda's heels.

"Yes, Gio," she said hitting Betty on the shoulder and dragging her to the window. "Why didn't you tell me he's so cute?! Does he have a girlfriend?"

Hilda peered anxiously out the window, trying to catch a glimpse of him outside.

"Hilda…" Betty said, exasperation and amusement warring in her features. "He's doing us a favor, not looking for a date!"

"And…?" Hilda asked.

Betty rolled her eyes. "And I don't know if he has a girlfriend. I never asked. I already have a perfectly wonderful…"

"…wonderful boyfriend, we know," Hilda finished the sentence.

Betty gave her a dirty look and said, "Do you mind?" as she looked expectantly at the door.

Hilda ignored her. "Betty, he is sooo…cute! Why do you always get the cute ones?" she complained.

"Hilda, I don't know what you're talking about, and Gio's not 'mine'. Can I get dressed now?"

"Oh! I'd better go get the door for him. Get downstairs quick!" On that order, she turned around and ran out of the room.

Betty thought amusedly that Hilda could sometimes be best described at a whirlwind. She slammed the door shut behind her and walked back over to the window, where she could just make out movement near the back of the van. Gio stepped into view- he was talking on his phone. She thought ruefully that Gio might be the kind of guy who appreciated a whirlwind every now and again. That annoyed her for some reason.

Nobody ever looked twice at her when Hilda was around.

She stared down at his profile. Then inexplicably, as if he knew she was watching him, he lifted his gaze to the house. She backed out of the window quickly, feeling weirdly caught since she was standing there spying on him in a towel. Shaking her head as if to clear her thoughts, she went to get dressed.

Who cared if Hilda was interested in Gio anyway? For one thing, she should be supportive- Hilda hadn't even looked at men since Santos. For another, Henry was coming over today too, to install the sink, and he was all she needed.

She pointedly ignored the deepening red stain on her cheeks as she moved past the mirror.

--

By the time Gio got inside with the sink, Hilda and Betty were already in the salon, unpacking boxes.

He glanced at Betty on the way in. It was the first time he'd seen her dressed casually. He kind of liked the look on her. Here she didn't seem like she was actively trying to fit in. She just did. She was much more comfortable with her environment, and he could tell, with herself. Not for the first time did he wonder how she'd ever ended up at Mode.

"It's interesting…You only call me when you need something," Gio teased Betty as Hilda directed him where to put the sink. "When was the last time you been down to my deli and bought a sandwich?" He struggled with the chair he was using to move the sink around on.

Finally she turned around looked at him. "Well, Gio, that's because every time I come in, you yell, "There she is- the eater!" she said with a funny look on her face.

"It's cute…" he responded, gesturing between them. "It's our thing."

She gave him a look of patent dismay.

Hilda turned around and said, "Look, Gio, you gotta let me pay you. I don't feel right!"

He gave her a charming smile and gestured towards his hair. "Just give my mom a haircut and don't tell her about her bald spot," he flirted shamelessly. Hilda gave him a winning smile and made a cute little shrug.

"Um, Gio, you can just set the sink down over there- Henry's coming to install it," Betty said, noticing the long look Hilda and Gio gave each other.

"A man of many talents…is there anything that Egg Salad can't do?" Gio quipped as he moved the sink to the corner Betty had indicated.

Betty made a pouty face behind his back at Gio's nickname for Henry. Hilda looked curiously at Betty and asked, "Why is Henry Egg Salad?"

In a slightly scolding, matter-of-fact voice, Betty replied, "Because Egg Salad is a boring sandwich, and _Gio_," she gestured to him across the room, "thinks that _Henry_ is boring."

Gio gave her a look as if to say "Prove me wrong."

Hilda looked at Gio and said, "Oh no, Henry's not boring!" Turning back to Betty, she said, "No-look at all the cool stuff you guys do, I mean your…um, Saturday night sundae night- that sounds like fun!"

Gio was sporting a look of disbelief. Betty smiled.

"It is! It is so much fun!" she responded, really warming to the subject.

Gio just observed the conversation without making a sound.

"Every weekend, we have a theme topping," she continued excitedly, "like last week we were watching 'Walk the Line', you know, about Johnny Cash, so he chopped up cashews."

Hilda laughed.

"It was fun!" Betty exclaimed. She turned and looked at Gio, as if convincing herself of it. "It was fun."

"And did you eat it with a Reese Wither-spoon?" he mocked, making a stupid face, as he fumbled with the rope that was securing some stuff in the salon chair.

Hilda started laughing uncontrollably, and Betty, trying to suppress a smile, threw an empty hair-dye bottle at his head, which he promptly caught before flashing them a mockingly chagrined smile.

Hilda was still laughing. "That's funny," she said to no one in particular, then she turned to Betty and said "He's funny," as if Betty hadn't heard the joke.

"Yeah he's a riot," Betty replied, giving Hilda a wry look.

"I'm just kidding," Gio said, as he shrugged out of his leather jacket. "But come on," he continued, gesturing to Betty as he spoke, "you and Henry have like, what, 4 months left? And this is how you spend a Saturday night?" he asked incredulously.

Betty threw her hands up. "Ok, Gio what would you do?" she asked, crossing her arms and looking at him archly. Hilda turned toward him too, waiting for his response.

He looked at Betty, nonplussed, and said, "Well." He set down the hairdryer case he was holding. He gazed off into the distance, seeming to give the question serious thought. Turning back to Betty and Hilda, who were both listening intently, he said in a dangerously low voice, "If I loved a girl, and I knew I had so little time left with her, then every night would be a chance to make a memory," he said as he pointed for emphasis. "_Believe me_," he continued, walking towards them, and giving Betty a direct stare, "if there was any ice cream involved, I would be eating it off her stomach." He flashed them a steamy look to accompany this statement.

He was slightly amused to hear Hilda remark, "Sexy," followed immediately by Betty saying, "Gross." They both looked at each other as if disgusted by the other's reaction.

"And I'd take her out to Montauk, with a bottle of wine, and we'd build a fire," he continued with a smile on his face now, "and sleep on the beach…Or maybe we'd climb the fire escape to the rooftop of the Blue Note and listen to music." He was looking up, and simultaneously fiddling with the rope, as if lost in a trance of his own making as he continued. "Or maybe we'd just go out dancing, cause you never feel closer to woman," he said holding his arms up to imitate holding a partner, "than when you're holding her, y'know? Mmm." He closed his eyes now. "So close that you can feel her breath on your neck, because love…doesn't come around often, and I wanna make every second count," he finished up and sneaking a glance at them.

He was even more amused when he saw Hilda's slightly dreamy look paired with Betty's attempt at supreme disinterest, which was obviously failing miserably.

Just then, a song came on the radio that he liked.

"Whooooo!" he exclaimed, and then clapped. They both visibly started, coming out of their reverie. "Man I love this song! Oh! Whoo! C'mon Betty!" he said as he grabbed her hand and pulled her to the middle of the room.

"No! …Gio," she started. He started to move to the music. "I don't wanna dance," she said. He ignored her and started dancing around her. "We have to work," she protested. "Hilda!" she said looking to her sister for support and silently pleading for her to save her. "We have to work."

"What?" Hilda asked loftily, as if to say, "Why don't you just sit back and let him take care of you?

Betty couldn't help but to smile.

"C'mon," Gio said coming around the front of her now, "a little bit of dancing." He grabbed her hands and starting moving back and forth in an impromptu salsa. "Ready, 1-2. One, two, mmm, mmm. There you go. You got it. You got it," he encouraged as she started to pick up the steps. She was grinning like a fool, and Hilda was laughing. He turned her into a swirl with a flourish, and brought her back for a dramatic dip.

Excitedly, Hilda exclaimed, "Oh hey, you guys are good together!"

They were all laughing and having a good time when Henry appeared in the doorway and said in a somewhat surprised and not at all pleased tone, "Yeah, really good."


	4. The TimeLife Plumber

**A/N: No affiliations with UB or characters. Sadly.**

**OK, I finally dredged up some inspiration for Ch. 4! As it turned out, there's so much left _unsaid_ from the B4B episode, that it's going to be a 3-parter at least! Hope you enjoy, and please review, good or bad! They are like candy : ) I'll try to get the 3rd part out ASAP.  
**

--

The light, carefree atmosphere in the soon-to-be-salon died an instant death. The music was still playing and Gio hadn't quite let go of Betty yet, but the radiant smile that had lit her face seconds ago was gone. Henry watched her expression go from unfettered and lively to guarded and guilty in the space of a second. She let out a nervous laugh and pulled herself out of the dip.

For a few seconds as Henry watched them disentangle themselves from one another, he was overwhelmed with raging emotions, none of which he showed on his face. He was immediately swamped with uncontrollable anger and jealousy, and his already somewhat intense dislike of Gio grew in leaps and bounds. He felt like he had walked in on an intimate moment…between _his_ girlfriend and another man.

Gio didn't give him any time to come to grips with his myriad emotions just then, though. With what seemed like a genuine smile on his face, as if the fact that he had just been dancing pretty …_familiarly_…with someone else's girlfriend didn't signify, he walked towards Henry with his hand outstretched.

"Hey Henry, good to see you," Gio said as he held out his hand for the expectant handshake and slapped Henry on the shoulder with his other. Henry gave him a measured look and eventually returned the gesture, but only after waiting long enough for it to get the point across.

_Why was Gio even here?_

Neither man looked away from the other until a nonverbal communication of sorts had passed. They would never be friends.

"Henry!" Betty exclaimed, moving away from Gio and towards Henry. He leaned down to accept Betty's kiss on his cheek, his eyes still trained on Gio, who had moved back and was now joking with and smiling charmingly at Hilda.

"I was wondering when you'd get here!" she chirped brightly, trying to ignore the tension between them. She knew that they didn't like each other overmuch, although in Gio's case, she didn't even know why. She couldn't think of anything Henry had done to offend him.

_And you think Henry can't tell that in your mind you wish you were still dancing with Gio? _

She could already feel her cheeks heating up. That would be a good reason to not like Gio.

"Well anyway," she babbled in Henry's direction, "I'm glad you're here. Can you just hang out for a minute? I'd like to use the bathroom…" She lowered her voice a bit towards the end there.

And without waiting for a response, she fled the room.

--

Betty slammed the door shut behind her. This bathroom/Gio thing seemed to be becoming habitual.

She knew she wasn't in the bathroom because of Henry. God, if Henry hadn't shown up when he did, she would probably still be dancing. With Gio. He would still be holding her close, emanating that sexy, unique scent of his. She would still be feeling his solid, comfortable warmth. Being pressed up against him as dictated by the steps of the dance. He was a good height for her. A little taller than her, but not so tall that she couldn't look into his eyes easily. It floored her to realize just how much she wanted to still be dancing with Gio.

_Oh no. I'm finding things about Gio sexy. And daydreaming about looking into his eyes. Really not good. Kind of scary, actually._

Her heart sank bit. How was she going to be able to go back out into that room? She had just known that involving Gio was going to be a bad idea all around. She should have insisted he take some money for the delivery and be on his way.

_Or better yet, never have asked for his help._

But then Hilda had gone and invited him to stick around- surely he had something better to do on a Saturday than perform errands for a couple of girls he hardly knew…but then he was saying, "Yeah sure, I'll take a beer," and grinning at her sister like they hadn't just met each other 45 minutes before, she remembered, somewhat annoyed. Really, Gio was _her_ friend, not Hilda's.

And, oh God, when he was describing a date with a girl he loved…She would endure hours of excruciating torture before admitting this to anyone, but his idea of a romantic date night so seriously outdid anything that she and Henry had ever done together (or she and Walter, for that matter) that it was laughable. All of his date activities sounded romantic. Seductive. Memorable. Even that one involving ice cream, which, although she had spontaneously dismissed it at the time, the visual replay that looped in her head was evoking different emotions altogether.

And those were just the ones he _spoke_ about.

And when he was talking about dancing and holding a woman close….

This side of Gio kind of alarmed her. Unnerved her. She much preferred finding him annoying. She could keep him at a safe distance there. Her mind conveniently ignored the fact that it hadn't worked so far. Conversely, it wouldn't let her forget the fact that he had grabbed _her_ to dance with and not Hilda, seconds after giving that speech.

She was terrified that if she started seeing him as a man, capable of sensitivity and romance, in addition to the other personality quirks she already knew of, she could fall in love with him. Would fall in love with him.

_Haven't you already?_ A voice floated through her thoughts. _"NO!"_ Another shouted. _"That's ridiculous. You love Henry."_

At the moment, she was panicked enough to cling to what that voice said. This…infatuation…or whatever it was, with Gio had to end. For a lot of reasons. For one, no way did he feel this way about her, and if he ever found out, he'd probably be wierded out bigtime and she'd never see him again. For another, _more importantly_, the voice running her head stressed, she already had Henry- the most wonderfully perfect boyfriend there ever was. Her time with him was already cut short. She would not spend the last few months they had together going crazy. Because of Gio.

She exhaled a sharp breath. Her resolve on this was firm. It had to be. Besides, Henry had promised her a date tonight that would knock her socks off. She didn't need romantic delusions about Gio.

Standing up straight and feeling like she'd really gotten somewhere, she left the safety of the bathroom and made her way back to the salon.

--

When she entered the room, she found Gio holding the shampoo sink in place while Henry was underneath anchoring it to the wall. She smiled.

_Maybe this would be easier than she thought._

"I got it from here, thanks Gio," Henry bit off in what one could loosely term a civil voice.

Gio stood up and backed off, noticing Betty in the doorway as he did so. He gave her a look that said, "Just trying to help…"

_Ok, maybe not_…

Just then, Hilda came in behind her carrying two beers.

"Here ya go, Gio. Nice and cold," she said.

"Just the way I like 'em," he replied, giving her a grin and toasting her.

"I'm so glad you were able to come over and help us out," she said in an overly grateful voice, and she meant it too.

_Dios, the boy had it._

They pulled up a couple of chairs and sat down facing Henry, who was now underneath the sink wielding a wrench and Betty, crouched down next to him and holding up a diagram in the Time-Life book for him to see.

"Anything for a pretty lady," he responded to her statement of thanks, flashing a dazzling smile.

_Oh, he had it alright. In spades. And then some_, Hilda thought appreciatively.

"So," Gio asked Hilda, "You're starting your own business?" He took a swig of his beer as he gestured around them, followed by a glance towards Betty and Henry who seemed to be not arguing, but…not really talking either. It was kind of hard to explain- Henry had a pinched look on his face and Betty seemed kind of bewildered.

"Oh yeah," Hilda responded. "Well I've always liked taking care of my own hair and nails, and I think I do a pretty good job if I do say so myself," she said, gesturing to herself, "so why not make some money, right?"

Gio was doing a good job of keeping up with the conversation, successfully enough that Hilda hadn't quite noticed his straying attention-he was actively listening in on the bickering beauties over there too and he could swear he just heard Henry say something about "dancing with that guy," which he supposed meant him.

Still watching them, he said to Hilda, "Yeah, I know what you mean. After Betty got me fired, I decided to use the opportunity to open my own sandwich shop."

A little more of their conversation filtered in. "…Just grabbed me…us some dance moves…" he heard Betty say.

"Damn it," Henry bit off from under the sink. That caught Gio's attention.

Betty jumped and said in her whisper-that-was-louder-than-she-thought-it-was voice, "It's not that big a deal…"

"What?" Henry asked abruptly. "No, it's this. I can't get this pipe to fit."

_Interesting_, Gio thought. _They're arguing about me._

He looked back at Hilda, who had done a double take when Gio mentioned that bit about Betty getting him fired.

_Betty got him fired? _Hilda thought._ My sister? And they're still friends?_

Gio smiled at her. She looked like she was ready to interrogate.

_Whoops. Let that slip. Too much information_, he thought.

"Need some help there?" he interjected quickly towards Henry.

"What?" Henry asked, sounding a bit harassed. "No. I got it."

Gio took the opportunity to draw out the conversation since he was pretty sure the minute Hilda got a minute in, she was gonna call him on it.

"Yeah, I see you've got your, ah…Time-Life books." He really tried to keep from sounding amused by that. It was not easy.

"Yep," Betty replied, smiling back at Gio. _Man, she's cute_. "Henry uses them all the time. He says they were his best friends growing up."

Inwardly, Gio smirked. That sounded like the kind of thing Egg Salad would say. And he hardly knew him.

"I didn't say it like that," Henry fairly whined, giving Betty an embarassed look.

Another inward smirk. _What did she see in this guy?_ Maybe he ought to throw him a bone.

"Y'know, I think where you're going wrong is you didn't slip the trap nut and washer onto the tail piece before you attached the p-trap," Gio volunteered in a casually confident tone. He certainly had no need for Time-Life books.

"Yes, thank you," Henry replied dryly.

It hadn't impressed Betty overmuch, but Hilda, having been thoroughly distracted by the flow of the conversation and her obvious lack of a tolerance for alcohol, followed up with, "Henry, I think you let Gio do it- that p-trap thingy sounds hard."

Gio took a long drink from his beer to hide his growing smile.

"_Hilda_," Betty said in a warning tone. "He says he can do it."

"Yes, I can," Henry said, finishing up. "There. It's done."

"Ok," Betty said brightly, getting up. She turned the water on and it ran straight through the pipes, which were clearly not installed the right way, and down onto Henry's head.

Hilda started. Betty jumped and screamed, "Henry!" Gio didn't so much as bat an eyelash. Henry was sputtering now, and trying hastily to get up. He turned the water off.

Silence for a few seconds.

"Uhhh…you ok?" Gio inquired. _C'mon, Egg Salad. Be a man. Call me out on it_.

"No, no," Henry said as he stood there dripping, looking at Betty. "It's supposed to do that-says so in the book." _Coward_, Gio thought, shaking his head a bit and finishing up his beer.

Betty was now frantically flipping pages because she clearly wanted to believe that.

Henry just stood there, dripping pathetically. Hilda finally jumped up and said, "Henry- let me get you a towel. And maybe we can find you something to wear, so we can put your clothes in the dryer." She grabbed his arm and steered him out of the room, amid some protest.

"Really, Hilda, its ok…Betty! Are you coming?" he was shouting through the door now, as Hilda dragged him away.

Betty was still staring at the book, somewhat dumbfounded.

"Betty," a soft voice intruded on her thoughts. _Gio_. She looked up. He was standing in front of her, his eyes searching her face. She looked around. They were alone. _They were alone_. This was the first time they'd been alone since the van ride to Jersey. It felt different now. And she was extremely aware of that difference.

He reached towards her and she stepped back involuntarily, holding the book between them like a shield. Her heart had started pounding again and her breathing became shallow. Henry was momentarily forgotten. _Why did he do this to her?_

He plucked the book from her hands and set it down on the chair behind them.

"Why don't you go help your sister?" he suggested, gesturing to the doorway. "I'll take care of this," he said as he waved his hand towards the sink.

He gave her a little shove towards the door. And shut it behind her she left. He sat down on a chair and heaved out a huge sigh. That had been an awkward little middle-school moment. _Why did she do this to him?_ He looked at the sink for a little while. It didn't matter what she did to him; he wasn't her boyfriend.

Just then, the door opened. Hilda came through, pushing a mop and bucket.

"Oh, I didn't realize anyone was still in here…" she said, smiling at him.

He immediately reverted to his flirty, charming manner and returned the smile.

_This sister, though, he was pretty sure didn't have a boyfriend._


	5. Flaming Pelicans for Everyone

**A/N:No affiliations with UB or its characters, no matter how much I wish it was so... **

**I apologize for the length of this one for anyone who can't sit still for very long...This one goes out to Stuley23 for jumping right in to help me out so I could get it out there faster, since she's apparently stalking it : ) I hope there's enough inner dialogue for you... **

**Enjoy, and let me know what you think!**

**--**

Betty had escaped into her room for a few minutes, surprisingly easy to do with all the commotion downstairs. Her house seemed like a veritable hub of activity today, and she was quickly coming to realize that the more she wanted to be alone with her thoughts, the less a chance it seemed of happening.

She was taking advantage of the time Henry was taking in the bathroom drying off and getting changed to go over the last half hour in her brain. She figured she might have a good chunk of it to work with because it had fallen to Justin to find Henry clothes to wear, and he was treating the opportunity as if dressing Henry to walk down the runway.

_Why did I stand there like an idiot while Henry got drenched?_

She had no answer for this. She rather thought it might be a combination of things actually. She had been caught off guard when the water burst through the pipes, that was true. She hated to say it, but Henry probably should have listened to Gio. He seemed like he was pretty familiar with plumbing, while Henry was…well, Henry was using a book. And she could just _tell_ that when Gio asked Henry if he was ok, he hadn't really meant it in a nice way. He was laughing on the inside, she was sure of it-she was familiar with that tone of voice. Henry and Hilda both seemed to have missed it (thankfully in Henry's case- she really didn't think they needed another reason to be rude with each other). And if she wanted to be completely truthful with herself, it had been a little amusing. Comical, like in a TV show or something. The thought presented itself Henry might have deserved it a little bit too, because she could swear he had been trying to imply something about her and Gio with that dancing comment.

And then (_and how mortifying_), she'd stood there like a bigger idiot while Henry was standing there soaked and dripped. Hilda had eventually taken Henry to clean up- she should have done that. _Why hadn't she done that?  
_

She seized on the first irrational thought she had, which was that it must be Gio's fault, of course. It made perfect sense in her mind. He had been subtly goading Henry all day, and if he hadn't done that, she was confident that none of this would have ever happened.

_Plus_, she thought petulantly, _he's been making me feel like an idiot from day one_.

She thought back to the beginning, when they'd first met. He'd mocked the way she wanted her sandwich, and then come after her and made her feel bad for getting him fired. How was she supposed to know Daniel was actually listening to her for once? She was just venting, and Daniel never took her seriously anyway!

He'd picked on her all the way to Jersey, then started quacking at her for what she still thought was no apparent reason. Even worse though, she'd found herself stooping to his level and responded by woofing at him.

_Woofing?!_

That whole fiasco with Wicked wasn't even worth rehashing, although to be fair, she had felt like a giant jerk about the trampy blond comment, especially after he had introduced her to his little sister.

Her traitorous mind wanted to dwell on the type of guy who would bring his kid sister out rather than some trampy blond, but she refused to let it. If she went there, she'd have to start thinking about that weird moment in the salon just now, when they were alone. And she wasn't doing that. Better off all around to just try to remember how much he annoyed her. A small corner of her mind wanted to acknowledge that she might be losing that battle spectacularly, but she squashed it mercilessly.

She decided Henry must be about done by now. At the very least, someone was bound to notice her absence, so she went downstairs to help Papí with lunch.

--

Henry wasn't done yet. Justin was having the time of his life, and Henry was somewhat bewilderingly letting him. He really wanted to get back downstairs though, because all he could really think about was Gio and Betty alone in the salon. And it was driving him mad. He was pretty sure Gio had a thing for her, and he wasn't stupid. He could see that she liked him, even if she claimed he was just an annoyance to her.

Now that he had space from Gio, he could go over all the feelings he'd been hit with when he walked in on them dancing. A little bit of guilt and shame descended on him for jumping to conclusions- he knew that Betty would never cheat on him. He trusted _her_ completely. But further below the surface, there were tangible amounts of fear, sadness and despair.

Irrational fear that Betty was giving into the hopelessness of their situation. He couldn't blame her if she was. Had no right to. He should never have let Betty talk him into 'spending what little time they had left together.' It was hurting both of them, and would get worse before it got better. He _knew_ that... But he just couldn't stay away from her.

There was an incredible sadness too. He remembered Betty's vibrant expression as she was dancing. Sadness, because Gio could so easily put a smile like that on her face, and just his appearance was enough to wipe it off.

The despair was the worst though. Because he knew in that moment, when he had walked in and seen them together, that this was the future. And it killed him.

He wasn't blind- he could see that there was …_something_…between them the night he had met Gio at the theatre. Henry was destined to break her heart and he knew it- he certainly couldn't see any way out of this mess, and God knew he'd tried. He would be gone, and it would be just a matter of time before Gio took his place. It wasn't even so much that he disliked Gio- they were somewhat like oil and water, true, but he wasn't a bad guy. He was just the enemy, simply. The object of all Henry's dissension. He was fairly sure that Gio would treat Betty like gold, like she deserved.

But that wasn't really the problem. The problem was that he couldn't even summon up the nobility to be happy that she might be able to move on. And to have to put a face to the guy that she would inevitably choose to do it with...

_What kind of a person was he?_

--

Betty was helping Papí set the table for lunch when Henry came down with Justin in tow.

"See what I did here?" Justine asked excitedly from behind Henry. "I mixed a little bit of prep with a little bit of gangsta, and I found an edge where there was none," he said, pointing to Henry.

Henry was still somewhat bewildered by all this, and feeling not just a little self-conscious about the clothes he was borrowing.

"I don't know," he began, looking at Justin. "Can I really rock this look?** _Betty_**?" he asked Betty in a beleaguered voice, who was coming out of the kitchen with some dishes for the table.

"Umm…I like the color," she finally decided on, giving Henry a good look and putting on a big fake smile.

"Henry, your clothes will be dry in 20 minutes, and ah, you can just keep my boxers," Ignacio said, coming out of the kitchen to get a look at Henry as well.

Just then Hilda ran out of the salon and said excitedly, "You guys are not gonna believe what I just did!" Without letting anyone get a guess in, she continued, "I asked Gio out!"

She looked like a little girl in her excitement; she was bouncing up and down and had brought her hands up to her cheeks, as if she was bashful.

"What?" Betty had asked, almost as if disbelieving, and giving Hilda a look. She held in a breath.

_Ok, that caught me off guard, that's all._

"Yeah," Hilda went on, "We're gonna go dancing!" She giggled as she said it.

Just noticing Henry behind Betty, she said, "Oh Henry, that's…cute," she said with a little smile.

Betty had forgotten about Henry's clothes. She couldn't get past "I asked Gio out." There was a heavy feeling in her stomach, kind of like someone had taken a swing or she'd eaten too much flan.

_I am so not jealous,_ she thought incredulously_.  
_

"Really? Gio?" she asked Hilda, in a voice that suggested she wasn't too sure about that. Quickly, she tried to cover that up with, "I mean, don't you find him a little annoying?"

"No, I think he's fun," Hilda said, "besides you're always the one who keeps saying that I should go out!" She yelled after Betty as she left the kitchen.

_Yeah, but not with Gio. He's __**my**__ friend, _she thought irrationally_._

_Shut up_, her logical side inserted. _He can date whoever he wants to_.

"Good move mija, it'll be nice to have someone around the house who's so handy," she heard her father say from the kitchen.

They all noticed Henry was still standing there. "Oh, I mean when we're not calling Henry to…fix things," Ignacio threw in as an afterthought while Hilda nodded in compliance and agreed quickly, "Yeah." Betty gave them both a look.

"I'm out," Ignacio said, walking away from the table. Betty gave Henry a sickly but supportive little smile.

Thinking to change the subject for Henry's sake _(yeah right, who was she kidding?)_, Betty said rather vehemently, "I don't know Hilda. I think he's a little bit of a know-it-all." This whole conversation seemed to agitate her a bit.

Henry jumped at his chance. "I think its great Hilda."

From behind, Justin threw in "Eh, I'm on the fence."

Betty unconsciously made a somewhat disappointed face at Henry's quick approval.

The door to the salon opened, and Gio walked out, drying his hands on a towel.

"All done," he said, looking at Hilda, who was smiling madly at him.

Justin approached him seriously and said on a sigh, "Just be home by 11," which earned him a smack on the arm from his mother.

Gio chuckled. _This kid was great._

"Ow!" Justin said. "What?!" he exclaimed as he walked away.

Gio's eyes followed him with a smile.

Betty busied herself playing with Henry's collar and trying not to listen to Gio and Hilda talk about the particulars of their date. She looked over at them apprehensively, feeling like she was somehow being left out.

_I can't believe they're going on a date. _The infatuation speaking again_._

_You think he's annoying! **AND** you have a perfectly wonderful boyfriend!_ The logical side there.

"So Hilda, you like Reggaeton music?" Gio asked, taking her hand and drawing her aside.

"Are you kidding? I love Reggaeton!" she exclaimed, gesturing to herself for emphasis and giggling.

Betty couldn't keep herself from watching the couple.

_Not jealous. Don't care._

"Oh man, I know this hot club with this amazing DJ, it is _**off the hook**_!" Gio exclaimed.

"Oh God, that sounds like so much fun!" Hilda replied excitedly.

"Yeah, that does sound like fun!" Betty couldn't stop herself from chiming in.

"Hey, do you guys wanna come?" Hilda asked, excited at the prospect of a double date. Gio looked at them expectantly, almost as if daring Henry to be so spontaneous.

Betty looked inquiringly at Henry, unaware of how eager she looked. Annoying or not, she wanted to go dancing.

_PleasePleasePlease._

Hilda and Gio waited.

"Umm…" Betty started, desperately wanting to be included, and looking at Henry.

"We have plans," Henry said in a somewhat whiny voice.

"We have plans," Betty echoed, trying to smile. "Uh, my boyfriend has a really big surprise for me," Betty said as she smiled, trying not to look let down.

"Yeah," Henry said. Hilda and Gio nodded their heads.

"It's off the hook too," Henry stated, in a not so good impression of Gio.

"Really?" Betty asked coyly.

_Maybe this will be just as much fun…_The infatuated Betty didn't appear to have a whole lot to say on the matter.

--

It really wasn't. Fun, that is.

Betty was hiding in the bathroom, yet again, although at Henry's apartment this time. She was replaying the day's events so far with him over in her mind, and wonder of wonders, Gio had made another appearance in her thoughts.

"_It's off the hook too," Henry had said trying, but failing kind of miserably, to impersonate Gio._

Later that night, when Betty had gotten to Henry's apartment, she had almost managed to forget that she was stuck inside watching old movies _again_ while her sister was out having a hot dinner and dancing date with Gio. She didn't know why, but the thought really bothered her.

_It's just because I'm worried about Hilda_, she had managed to convince herself. _It's her first date since Santos…_

But she had counted on Henry to blast these disturbing thoughts right out of her mind, and he had really let her down, not that she would tell him that.

The big surprise, the one that was going to knock her socks off, had turned out be…ice cream. Wow. Making it, specifically, before eating it this time. She had to admit that it was kind of cute that Henry had named the ice cream 'Bananas for Betty,' but really, it just didn't outshine dinner and dancing.

_Especially not Gio's dancing. A girl could become addicted to that..._She tried to ignore that cheeky voice that had come back uninvited.

She was beginning to feel frustrated. When she had tried to give Henry a passionate kiss to demonstrate how much she appreciated having the ice cream named after her, he had gotten up in mid-kiss without a thought, and started going on about her 'serious lack of knowledge in New German Cinema.'

_Was he serious?_

She tried to go along with it, but her disappointment must have come through because he had turned serious and said, "Hey, are you ok?"

Using Gio's suggestions as examples (_and she really didn't want to get into the **why** of that_), she tried to talk Henry into doing something a little more…spontaneous. Like climbing a fire escape, or going to the pier. He had given her the mother of all perplexed looks and responded, "But it's supposed to rain and its movie night."

_That's not the point, Henry…_

And when she had thought to enliven their plain old ice cream date up using Gio's suggestion, that hadn't gone well at all. Henry had been, by turns, frozen, burned, and then kind of angry. Apparently she didn't have the hang of this romantic stuff.

_But I bet Gio does_, the sneaky voice in her head said.

_Stop it! _She retorted in her logical no-nonsense voice.

Henry had become visibly agitated over her uncharacteristic behavior and called her on it.

_"This is crazy! How is this better than the night I planned?" _he had asked kind of furiously.

_"I don't know," _she had replied in a somewhat miserable voice_. "I just wanted to try something different."_

_"Well, this is different," _Henry had said kind of shortly, and stalked off to the bathroom to clean the mess off his stomach.

_"Henry. It's just that we have so little time left together," _she had said honestly and determinedly,_ "and I feel like we're not making the best of it…It's like why are we sitting at home…when we could be out there…dancing or something?" _

_"Dancing?" _Henry had asked, the lightbulb coming on in his head._ "Like Gio and Hilda?"_

_**He should have known that Gio was behind this.**_

_"Well," _she had replied, looking kind of defeated,_ "why not?"_

Henry made a really funny face, as if having to accept something he did not even want to see. That kind of panicked her. She didn't want him to think this was about Gio.

_"Henry, I just…I want us to have memories," _she had followed up quickly.

_This was not about Gio. Not about Gio._

Apparently that had convinced him_. "Ok," _he had said_, _giving in._ "If that's what you really want…we'll go dancing."_

And so here she was, sitting in Henry's bathroom, trying to convince herself that it wasn't about Gio, and she didn't want Henry to be more like Gio. So much like Gio that he was Gio.

And she thought she should feel bad for making Henry feel like the date he had planned was inadequate. But she just wanted to dance. And it was all Gio's fault. Again.

_Why was this infatuation so strong?_

A knock sounded on the door.

"Betty- you ok? I'm ready to go when you are," Henry spoke through the door.

"Uh, ok…I'll be out in a minute," she yelled back. She flushed the toilet to make it seem like she was actually using the bathroom for its intended purpose, which of course it seemed like she never was these days. She looked at her reflection in the mirror for a minute. She smiled a little anyway.

She was going dancing.

--

They walked into the club and spotted Gio and Hilda right away, seated at a table laughing at each other.

"Hey! You guys!" Betty yelled over the lively music. Hilda jumped up and shouted "Hey! You came!" and simultaneously Gio yelled "Whooooaaa!" with a big grin on his face, as he welcomed them with a big gesture.

He patted the seat next to him in invitation for Henry, and Hilda hugged Betty as she giggled.

"We thought we'd take you up on your offer, are you having fun?" Betty asked around the table.

"Hell yeah," Gio said, with a giant smile for her.

"Oh, the restaurant was amazing!" Hilda said exuberantly. "I had four champagne cocktails," she said holding four of her fingers up, "and I don't even feel drunk!" she yelled as she hit Betty on the arm.

Betty and Henry laughed at Hilda's clearly drunken behavior as Betty rubbed her arm. Hilda had actually hit her pretty hard. Still laughing, Henry said, "well, let me get us a round of drinks," as he motioned to the server.

Gio held up his hand in a staying motion towards Henry and said "No, no, I'll get 'em, I'll get 'em."

Henry gave Gio a hard look and said, "No, I got it." He waved to the server again.

Hilda interjected, "Well, somebody get 'em, cuz I don't feel anything!"

When the server got to the table, Gio cut in before Henry had a chance. "A round of Flaming Pelicans, please," he said gesturing around the table.

Henry gave Gio another look, and said to the server, "Oh, no, no…I don't want a Flaming...Pelican," he said looking back at Gio again.

Betty said, "Why not, they sound fun! Have one."

"It's ok," Henry said, "I'm gonna have a club soda."

Betty shouted to the server from behind Henry, "No! Get him one of those flaming things…It'll loosen you up," she said to Henry. He looked at her incredulously. She didn't notice. "And then, Gio can show you some of those fancy dance moves," she said giving Gio a big grin.

Henry turned to look at Gio, who gave him a rather cocky, self-assured nod.

Henry just said, "I'm good," and turned back to Betty, pointedly ignoring Gio's smug smile.

They exchanged a somewhat conflicted look, until Gio interrupted with, "So, Hilda- how about you let me tow you around the dance floor?"

He held out his hand to her, which she promptly grabbed, and said "Sure."

He gave Henry a look that almost held a dare in it.

_Let's see what you got, Egg Salad. _This was Gio's turf and he knew it.

They started making their way out to the dance floor. When Gio realized Henry and Betty weren't following, he stopped and turned around.

"You guys coming?" he asked, looking at Henry again.

"Yeah!" Betty cried as Henry said, "Nah."

Gio watched the disappointed look settle over Betty's features. Mentally, he was shaking his head. _What was wrong with this guy? How was he managing to hang onto this girl?_

Henry pointed to the dance floor and said to Betty, "You go."

Betty tried to keep from looking too let down and said to Gio, "Umm, we'll go on the next one, we'll dance on the next one…" and finished off with the most forced smile he had ever seen.

Gio's smile dimmed a bit. He felt bad for her. _Why had Henry bothered if he wasn't even going to dance with her?_

There wasn't anything he could do about it except hope that it left enough of a bad impression to tarnish his image a little in Betty's eyes. Or at least clue her in that life wasn't one big fairy tale and no one was perfect.

_If he'd brought Betty here, he wouldn't be leaving her to prop the table up, that's for sure._

Well there wasn't much he could do about it, and he was here with Hilda anyway, who was waiting for him. He affected a shrug, as if to say "whatever" and guided Hilda to the dance floor, trying desperately to put Betty out of his mind.

It wasn't easy. He didn't have much experience playing the chivalrous knight. So he concentrated on his dancing. He could dance, and he knew it. Dancing was, to him, a thing with a life all its own. Certain movements meant to seduce, others meant to warn off. The mingling of skin and heat and breath, all trying to escape to the beat. He could focus on his partner and make love to her through the steps of the dance without ever touching her if he needed to. Although he preferred the touching. A dance could be the most intimate of gestures, if one knew how to do it right. And there was fire between the dancers.

Hilda was an excellent dancer, she knew how and when to move to the beat. Even when she was drunk. And they worked well together. But if he was completely honest with himself, he didn't feel half the chemistry he'd experienced while dancing a much simpler dance earlier in the day with Betty. Hilda was beautiful. And confident. But there was something about Betty that drew him like a moth to flame. _An apt description_, he thought. _Can't stop myself, but I'm gonna pay for it in the end every time_.

Every once in awhile, he snuck glances towards the table and was either cursed or rewarded, he hadn't figured out which, with the looks the couple there was throwing off. Betty was staring openly at them, with a wistful, pained look on her face. Henry, on the other hand, had the expression of a petulant child who had been forced to go shopping with his mother.

He returned his attention back to Hilda and moved in a little closer.

_You're here with Hilda. Not Betty_.

He lightly placed his hands on her midriff to emphasize that he was enjoying being close to her. He _was_ enjoying being close to her, but deep down, even he knew that he was outdoing himself all for some girl who thought he was an annoying know-it-all. He'd heard her in the kitchen earlier.

All of a sudden, a jerky movement caught his eye. Turning toward the action he saw Betty pulling on Henry's shoulder, and Henry standing up stiffly, as if to placate her. He wasn't sure what was going on, but they seemed to be arguing. Henry was backing away now, right into a server who had some of the flaming drinks on his tray. The movement had caught the attention of others in the club as well, and everyone watched as the fuzz on Henry's sweater went up in flames.

The dancing stopped. The music stopped. Everyone was watching the scene unfold and Betty was screaming. She tried to throw a drink on him to staunch the fire, but he moved away too quickly. He grabbed a pitcher from a table and dumped it on his arm.

Beside Gio, Hilda gasped sharply.

The man who belonged to the pitcher Henry had just doused himself with let out an indignant,"Hey!"

Henry responded angrily, "I'm sorry, did my catching _on fire_ interrupt your _**date**_?!"

Gio, Hilda and Betty were all alarmed. None of them had ever seen this side of Henry. Betty rushed to his side and asked worriedly, "Are you ok?"

He erupted at her with, "Betty, what are we even doing here??"

She was momentarily stunned. "I just…I just wanted us to dance," she finally got out. But Henry seemed in no mood to forgive. Or try to understand.

"Well, if you wanna dance so badly, then…then, go dance with Gio," he shouted, gesturing to the dance floor. "Cuz I'm never gonna be that guy," he said with an air of finality, leaving her standing alone in the middle of the club while he stalked off.

--

The music had started back up, and Gio was moving to it again, but there was no getting back to the rhythm he'd had pre-eruption of Mt. Henry. Instead, he found that couldn't help but stare at Betty who was standing dejectedly in the middle of the club still. Her head was bowed and her shoulders were hunched over. He wondered what had caused that little lovers spat. He'd heard his name again. He'd heard Henry yell, "Go dance with Gio, cuz I'm never gonna be that guy!" and watched him leave in a huff.

_They were fighting about him again? What the hell was going on?_

After a minute, Betty walked slowly off the club floor to a corner and he watched her pull out her phone. He mentally shook his head again.

_When was she gonna get it?_

When people started crowding him on the dance floor, he turned and saw Henry making his way onto the floor. He was starting to move, in some kind of a vaguely dance-like pattern. Gio looked towards Betty again, and realized that she was standing there watching him with a smile on her face.

_She was eating this up. He really didn't get it_.

He had to admit, at least the guy was trying, but he'd thought the argument was that _she'd_ wanted to dance, so he couldn't figure out why Henry was doing this, or why it was obviously making Betty happy.

_But hey, who was he to judge?_ He obviously didn't understand women nearly as well as he thought he did.

When Henry finished showing off, Gio clapped along with everyone else. His heart wasn't really in it though. He watched somberly as Henry left the floor- he could already see that Betty had forgiven anything bad feelings tonight, and any minute they were going to be making out in front of half of the Upper East Side.

As soon as the song ended, he started walking off the dance floor, Hilda in tow. He watched Betty and Henry moving in closer to one another for a romantic kiss, and he just didn't think he could watch it without gagging.

"Henry!" he shouted, getting nearer to them. "Wow…" Gio said, putting his hand on Henry's shoulder and interrupting their would-be kiss. He reverted back to his cool, confident mode. "What can I say? Hey man, you have the moves of a jungle cat," he said, as admiringly as he could stomach.

From behind him, Hilda inserted rather drunkenly, "Yeah, Henry, where have you been hiding that?" as she held onto Gio for support.

Gio laughed and asked, "So who's drinking?"

"I am!" Hilda exclaimed. "You know, I think they water these down…just sayin," she added as she turned and walked back towards the bar.

Gio gave them a wide-eyed look and raised his eyebrows at Hilda's claim, and started to follow her, assuming Henry and Betty would be right behind.

When he realized they were still standing there, he turned back around and gestured towards the bar. "Hey, uh…you guys comin?"

They gave each other a look that kind of made him feel ill, and Henry said, "I think we're going home." Betty was gazing at him as if he'd just saved the world or something of equal import. Then they turned around and walked off, arm in arm, without a backward glance.

"Later," he called after them. Gio watched them leave for a long time, not noticing Hilda watching him. The look on his face said it all.

He had the random thought that he would give anything for Betty to give _him_ that look. Or even one that might indicate she liked him as a person. Or thought of him as a person.

He watched them slip through the door.

_Well, it wasn't his business anyway. And Hilda was waiting._

_--_

Hilda and Gio took the train back home and he followed her inside. She was laughing and appeared to have had a good time. He thought that he might like to get to know her a little better, even if it meant having to watch Betty and Egg Salad be sickening together on a regular basis. She was motioning for him to be quiet, so as not to wake anyone.

"I think I had too much to drink," she stated.

"Ohhh, you wanna go back to the club?" He asked jokingly as he laughed and pointed out the door.

"So," he said after a minute, turning more serious.

"So," she repeated, sounding more sober than she should have been.

"Hey, do you, umm, wanna do this again sometime?" he asked, going for casual.

Hilda let out a frustrated sigh and crossed her arms. She looked him straight in the face and said, "I don't think so," with a little laugh.

_Well that wasn't the answer he'd been expecting._ He momentarily looked taken aback, and a little let down.

"Oh, I had so much fun tonight," she gushed, so he wouldn't get the wrong idea, "…when Henry caught on fire…" She couldn't help but laugh. He let a nervous, confused sort of laugh too. "Yeah," he replied, not really knowing what to say.

She looked at him for a few seconds and said, "You just really seemed to up your game when Betty showed up."

"What?!" he exclaimed before even thinking about her statement. "What're you talking about?" He tried to sound as cool as he could.

"I'm just saying," she said. After a minute, and a deep sigh, she continued with, "I don't think I'm the Suarez sister you like."

_Well that **definitely** wasn't the answer he'd been expecting._

**--**

**please leave some love if its worth it : )**


	6. The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of

_I don't think I'm the Suarez sister you like…"_

When the words first left Hilda's mouth, he automatically denied them in his own mind. Vigorously. Maybe a little too much so. He searched her face, waiting for the other shoe to drop, and had seen nothing but conviction, a tiny bit of regret and a whole lot of sympathy.

_She thought he liked Betty? Like really liked her?_

He stood there, stunned, for a few moments but her gaze had never wavered.

_Well, of course he liked Betty, but not like that...did he? No, she had a boyfriend; that would be pretty stupid of him. _

As he was forced to confront it in his mind and he saw an end-of-life style strip of flashbacks about every encounter they had had to date, he conceded that she might have some kind of valid point there. But he was kind of uncomfortable being hit with the bald truth and it was worse still that it had to come from Betty's sister. The sister that he had been on a date with.

"Hilda…" he began after finally recovering his faculty of speech.

Luckily, she interrupted him before he had a chance to say anymore anyway, because he truly had no clue what it was he was going to say to her.

_What did you say in this type of situation?_

"Gio. You don't owe me anything," she said, holding her hands up in a staying gesture.

"Besides," she continued, "you look like you might be more shocked than I am to hear it. Not that I'm shocked that you might like Betty," she rambled on as if having an afterthought. "Betty is my sister and I love her, and she has no trouble getting a guy, and…"

She was kind of like a steamroller and it didn't look like there was a foreseeable end to this segue in sight.

"Hilda," Gio interrupted.

He was torn between amusement and feeling foolish. That seemed to be a given around the Suarez sisters for certain.

_Jeez, give a guy a break._

He gave her a look that must have perfectly captured his overall bewilderment because she finally stopped and said, "What…? Oh sorry."

The sympathetic look returned to her face instantly. He hated that look-it was too close to pity for his comfort. Focusing on the need to get out of there before he was confronted with some other bomb of insight and they both started feeling really awkward, he gestured towards the door and said, "Well look- I had a really great time. Thanks for letting me take you out." He waited a beat. "We're cool, right?"

She crossed her arms and smiled at him.

"We're cool, Gio. Thanks for tonight," she said. "I really needed it."

"Alright," he said. "Maybe I'll see you around then."

He turned and went for the doorknob. Having an afterthought of his own, he turned back around and said, "Would you mind keeping this conversation between us? I don't want Betty to get the wrong idea…"

Hilda given him a warm smile and said, "Yeah, don't worry about it."

He thought that statement had been the end of the conversation but after a few seconds Hilda had said, "Look, Gio. I'm not trying to give advice where it's unwanted. But I think you need to hear this. My sister is a great person- she has a lot to offer the right guy. And she deserves a great guy. _You're_ a great guy," she said meaningfully. "Sometimes, the wrong idea isn't as wrong as you think. Eventually she'll see that. But it's gonna take time. And it has to come naturally."

She kind of left that hanging there. He had the random thought that she really shouldn't be this perceptive for the amount of alcohol she had drunk that night.

Not really sure how to digest all of that instantaneously, he asked, "So…what are you saying?"

She sighed, uncrossed her arms, and made her way to the staircase.

"I just hope you're a patient person," she responded with a smile. "Good night- don't be a stranger."

He nodded speculatively and let himself out. He stood there for a few minutes in the entranceway of the Suarez house, catching his breath. Why did it feel like he had gone a few rounds and come out the loser?

--

Hilda stood at the top of the stairs. She heard the front door close quietly. Silence for a minute, and then the outside door latched audibly. She moved down the hall to her bedroom.

She was a little disappointed. She liked Gio. She thought he might be just the type of guy she needed to move on after Santos. And she had thought they were getting along well, and there might be real potential there.

_Until Betty and Henry had showed up._

She sighed and started getting undressed. It wasn't Betty's fault, and she couldn't even feel bitter about it. Betty seemed oblivious to the fact that Gio was interested. To be fair, Gio hadn't even admitted he was interested to himself.

Hilda thought she might never forget the look on his face the moment he had realized she was probably onto something there. It was a mixture of shock, confusion, even a little bit of denial. But it had caused him to seriously stop and think, and she would bet money he would be doing that for a while.

Betty though…she was just so blinded by her marked relationship with Henry that she just couldn't see anything else right now. It was a desperate attempt to hold onto an ill-fated affair that just couldn't end well. Hilda could understand that, and sympathize with it.

But she worried about her sister. She had liked Henry at one time, had even encouraged Betty to be proactive about being with him if she really loved him. But this business with Henry's ex-girlfriend and his baby was putting serious strain on their relationship, whether Betty wanted to acknowledge it or not. Hilda could see Henry was trying to do it all, and Betty was slowly bending to accommodate him for the sake of love. Hilda was no expert, but she didn't think that was very healthy. And she kind of thought it might cause more problems than happiness in the near future. But who was she to say?

She got in bed and turned off the light. Stared into the darkness. Thought about dancing with Gio. Remembered the look on his face when Betty and Henry had left the club.

Downstairs, she heard the door shut. Quiet footsteps up the stairs and past her closed door. She heard the door to the next room close, and some shuffling movement.

_Betty._

It was late; Hilda wondered why she hadn't just spent the night at Henry's apartment.

_"I don't want Betty to get the wrong idea…"_ Gio's voice echoed in her head.

She had the feeling it might be hard to fall asleep tonight.

--

By the time Gio got home, he was a mess. Between Betty at the club and Hilda afterwards, he was pretty ripped apart. He really didn't think Hilda had done him any favors by forcing him to deal with the fact that he liked Betty. Now instead of being blissfully ignorant of it, he was painfully aware of it. Who knew how he would act around Betty the next time he saw her? Would he be able to keep her in the dark and just try to…wait the feeling out? Could he act normally?

_Well, you have to deal with it somehow_. _Cuz you're not the kind of guy that goes after another guy's girl. So that means you'd better get over it._

He could do this. And he'd have all night to think about how, because he was pretty sure sleep wasn't going to be soon in coming.

--

Betty crept quietly up the stairs. It was really late. She wondered if Hilda was in yet.

_And where Gio had ended up. No, she really didn't want to know, on second thought._

She gave Hilda's closed door a wary look. Her sister didn't really make a habit of jumping into bed with guys on the first date, but she and Gio seemed to have really hit it off. And she had been pretty drunk.

_Stop it. Gio is not in bed with Hilda. He wouldn't do that._

She reached her own bedroom door and quietly opened it, just as quietly shutting it behind her.

She quickly got undressed and crawled into bed after dousing the light. She stared unblinkingly at the ceiling in the dark. She wasn't even tired. And her brain was on overdrive.

This was the solitude she'd been craving all day and had been unable to attain. It had only needed to be 4 in the morning before she could finally be alone with her thoughts, she thought. Everyone was sleeping (or so she thought anyway) and all was quiet.

Henry hadn't understood her need to come home tonight. He'd tried his level best to talk her into staying with him at his apartment. But she had too much on her mind, way too much that didn't involve him, to make her feel like being close to him tonight.

Her thoughts wandered back to the club. She'd thought that was the answer. A night out, dancing and drinking. Socializing and making merry. She'd really thought Henry would enjoy it too. Looking back at it now, she wondered why she had thought such a thing. She'd been disappointed when Gio had invited them out onto the dance floor and Henry had refused. For some reason, she had thought Henry had meant it when he said they could go dancing. And she hadn't missed the look on Gio's face. She was beginning to think he was more observant than she gave him credit for.

_That's a bit scary._

And things like that were beginning to make her reconsider why Gio didn't appear to get along with Henry very well. She supposed, to an outsider, some of Henry's actions might not be considered…well she didn't really know. To be honest, sometimes _she_ wondered about Henry's actions. But he was her boyfriend, and she knew he loved her, so she didn't question it overmuch.

Tonight, she was feeling…restless or something though. Her date with Henry hadn't gone particularly well before or while at the club. Afterwards had been slightly better, but obviously not enough to take her mind off of…things_._

_Like Gio on a date with Hilda._

She sighed. What a conflicting day. Feelings for Henry that she'd not yet experienced, not so great ones. Feelings for Gio that she really hadn't experienced yet and wished would have just stayed where they were. Ones that were too scary to think about.

Ugggh. She was not going to bed with Gio on the brain. Clearly part of her brain was not to be trusted. So she closed her eyes and tried to think about Henry instead. All she kept hearing was, "But it's supposed to rain…and its movie night."

Amazingly, she was asleep in 5 minutes.

_She was standing on a rooftop somewhere in the city, absorbing the artificial light surrounding her and the dizzying motion from the traffic below. NY never slept, even during the bleakest hours. There was music pulsating from below her, rising up to envelop her in its sultry grasp. A heavy bass line resonated and a saxophone crooned. _

_The wind picked up and she heard the rumble of thunder. The air started to feel heavy, like rain. She thought that maybe she should go; being stuck on a rooftop during a storm probably wasn't the best place to be._

_But she was waiting for him. _

_Just thinking about their rendezvous caused her palms to get sweaty and her mouth to go dry. Her heartbeat picked up and she felt a curious sensation in the pit of her stomach. Anxiety? Nerves?_

_A gust of wind blew her hair and her skirt wildly. She felt free. Unfettered. Then the rain started coming down, in torrents. She ran to the doorway on the roof and huddled as far back into it as she could to keep dry. It was hard to see through the downpour, but she watched the fire escape in vain._

_When was he going to get here?_

_The rain started to let up a bit, not much, but it was no longer coming down hard enough to sting the skin. She still hid in the doorway, glad for whatever protection she could get._

_A noise came from the fire escape. Footsteps maybe? Surely it couldn't be the rain. A dark figure came into view as it reached the top steps of the fire escape. The single light on the roof made it hard to make out his face, but she thought it must be him. No, it was more like she __**felt**__ it must be him. _

_He came straight for her, his stride strong and unwavering. As he passed under the light, his face was shadowed, but there was no mistaking the passionate and determined look on it._

_Her breath caught in her throat and her heartbeat raced. _

_His layered t-shirts were positively plastered to his broad chest, moving sinuously with every step and highlighting how beautiful his body was. _

_His hair was dripping and stuck to his head, artfully soaked and tousled looking, and clinging as if to accentuate the best features of his face. Every drop of rain that ran off of it dripped down his chest and the movement caused here to focus there._

_His drenched jeans were hugging his muscular legs like a second skin, drawing her attention with every step he took._

_As he came nearer, she realized that he was staring into her eyes with a barely contained smoldering expression; he looked like he was going to positively devour her, starting with her lips._

_She realized that she was holding her breath and her mouth was cotton dry. He reached her and stopped just inches from her, his expression disturbing in its intensity. She took a deep breath, as if gathering the fortitude to fight a battle she knew she wouldn't ever win, and reached out to him._

_He bridged the gap between them and took her head in both his hands, bringing his lips ever nearer to hers, until she could feel the warmth of his breath against her mouth. She closed her eyes and prepared herself for the onslaught and…_

Awoke with a start. Betty shot up out of bed. She was sweating everywhere, her heart was pounding and her stomach was clenching uncontrollably. Her breath was short and she felt like she was standing in a furnace. She struggled with her covers and nearly fell to the floor in her haste to get out of the bed. Without stopping to turn on lights she ran straight to the bathroom and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She was still having trouble catching her breath and her cheeks were positively on fire. She fumbled with the handle on the sink, and splashed herself with astonishingly cold water.

After she had calmed down enough to breathe regularly, she made her way back to her room. Her skin was still tingly from the ridiculously life-like sensation of the dream. God, she could still feel his breath on her lips, and the ripple of his biceps through the wet fabric of his shirt.

She sat down on her bed and looked at her alarm clock.

4:52 in the morning. Apparently Henry's innocent mention of rain had stirred her overactive imagination. There would be no going back to sleep after that dream. She let out a heavy, shaky breath.

_How would she ever face Gio again?_


	7. Pickles and Gio and Guilt oh my!

**A/N: OK everyone, I'm really sorry it took so long to get this chapter out...I know you've all be waiting...quite patiently. cough I'm sorry if its not as exciting as the last chapter, but I wanted something in between where they left off in B4B and Odor. I've been distracted with all of St. Gio's benevolence of late, and had a bit of a writer's block too. To that end, I want to thank all the Getty girlz hanging out in the Chatzy since I went to you guys for inspiration in my time of need...and you came through! The next chapters shouldn't be so long in coming! So without further adieu...**

**--**

Betty woke up with a pounding headache and felt kind of like she had gotten run over by a truck. She was honestly amazed that she had fallen back asleep. Granted, it had been nearly 7 am by the time she had, but she was still surprised. She had thought that after that disturbingly vivid dream about Gio there was no way she would relax enough to fall back asleep.

She was almost sorry she did now. Not only was the dream still replaying on a loop in her head like she had actually lived it, she now felt completely unrested and achy in addition to being, well…_achy. _And _achy_ was not the kind of feeling she wanted where Gio was concerned.

She couldn't sit in bed and think about this any longer. She looked over at her alarm clock and saw that it read 11:16.

_Oh God, I've slept the whole day away!_

She scrambled out of bed and headed to the bathroom. When she opened her bedroom door, she nearly ran into Hilda, who was just coming out of her bedroom, yawning and stretching

"Betty!" Hilda said brightly. A little too brightly. "I didn't know you were home!"

Instantly, Betty got suspicious. Hilda was never that perky sounding after just getting up. Immediately, Betty's stomach felt like a lead weight. The only time Hilda sounded like that was when she was hiding something.

_Did she have Gio in her bedroom?_ The heavy feeling in her stomach started feeling a lot like nausea at that thought. Not even remotely wanting to know and dying to find out at the same time, she shifted her body weight so she could see into Hilda's open door. It didn't _look_ like there was anyone else in there.

"Yeah, I, uh, wasn't feeling that great after the club last night. I think between the drinks I had and that whole thing with Henry, it just kind of got to me. I didn't want to be bad company, so I just came home," Betty tried to return just as brightly; not an easy feat since she was still feeling a bit worn out.

_Well that was kinda close to the truth._

"So, how did your date go after we left?" Betty asked, trying not to sound too interested. She told herself the purpose for asking this question was out of genuine interest for Hilda, as well as conveniently deflecting the topic from herself. She knew the real reason was to pump Hilda for specific details; that if it had been any other guy, it wouldn't have been as important.

_It shouldn't be important now. __**He's**__ not your boyfriend._

"Oh, the date, umm…" Hilda began, averting her eyes. "It went good, really good," she continued, nodding a little for emphasis, and still looking away.

Betty was still getting the distinct impression Hilda was lying to her. She narrowed her eyes and looked hard at Hilda, who was starting to fidget a little.

"Hilda," Betty said in her most no-nonsense voice. "What aren't you telling me?"

Now she was concerned. Wet Gio dream had taken a backseat. Had Gio said or done something last night? Hilda was acting pretty strange, even for her.

"What?!" Hilda cried. "I don't know what you're talking about, there's nothing to tell."

The suspicious scrutiny continued. "Then why are you so fidgety?"

"I'm not, Betty. I'm fine. The date was great, really," Hilda hedged.

She was a little concerned that Betty had picked up on her apprehension to talk about her date. Betty was kind of like a rat terrier when she wanted to know something; she didn't let go until she found out. And she seemed kind of interested in this. Hilda kicked herself for being fidgety and nervous.

_Why couldn't she play it cool and lie convincingly when she needed to??_

Hilda didn't really want to get into the particulars of the date, not with Betty. Honestly, she was still stinging just a little bit from the fact that Gio obviously preferred Betty over her. And she really hadn't decided what to tell Betty and what to keep to herself…she _had_ made that promise to Gio…. Plus, Betty already had enough on her plate with Henry… Hilda wasn't sure Betty was ready to hear about Gio being seriously interested in her.

"Well," Hilda said quickly. "I'm gonna get in the shower, unless you need it first," she said as she gave a vague gesture to the bathroom.

Betty looked like she wanted to say something more, but in the end all she said was, "No, go ahead. I can wait." And with that she turned around and went back into her room.

Hilda let out a relieved sigh and went into the bathroom. She wasn't stupid; she knew Betty would bring that back up somehow before long.

_Well, at least she had time to come up with an excuse._

Betty didn't wait long to launch her attack. Hilda was a little more prepared this time though; she had been thinking things through during her shower. It struck her as odd that Betty seemed so…_interested_ in her date. At first she had thought Betty was just asking, like sister to sister. But she seemed to be doing it in a way that would yield maximum information, without really looking like it, and she seemed_ really_ interested in Gio's role in it. Hilda wondered if maybe Betty wasn't having reconsiderations about how she felt about Gio. But it was hard to tell; Betty wasn't exactly talkative about her relationships most times.

Hilda was sitting ate the table eating when Betty came down. Betty started right in.

"So what did you guys do after we left? How long did you stay?" Betty asked nonchalantly. Too nonchalantly.

"Oh, we didn't stay much longer…had a couple more drinks, did a little more dancing, you know…" Hilda left off. "He's a really good dancer, Betty. I mean,_** really**_ good."

"Oh, is he? I, ah, wouldn't really know…" Betty replied kind of hesitantly, desperately trying to not to recall how it had felt when she was dancing with him just yesterday. And remembering watching him dance with Hilda.

_Was it just yesterday? God, it felt so long ago…_

Scenes from her dream the night before flooded her head when she thought about him holding her. She had never felt so let down by a dream in her life. Or terrified of one, for that matter.

_Why did she have to wake up before he kissed her?_

_Thank God she woke up before he kissed her._

"Yes, you would," Hilda interrupted her thoughts.

"What?" Betty asked blankly, still a little mesmerized by the thought of a wet Gio. Moving in for a no holds barred kiss.

"You said you didn't know how good of a dancer he was. You do too. He danced with you yesterday in the salon. You guys were really good together, remember?" Hilda prompted.

"Oh, yeah. That. Yeah, I guess he is a good dancer," Betty responded slowly.

Hilda watched her face. Now she was definitely thinking there might be some interest there, conscious or not. Despite her own misgivings about the whole situation, Hilda found herself somewhat intrigued. She'd never seen this look on Betty's face before, not even where Henry was concerned. She wondered what it meant.

Betty abruptly started, causing Hilda to jump a bit herself.

"Oh!" she said. "Sorry about that, I was just kind of…zoning out," she continued, face flushing a bit.

"So, when are you guys going out again?" Betty asked in an 'I'm-dying-to-know-but-really-not-interested-and-not-hiding-it-very-well' kind of voice.

_Moment of truth_, Hilda thought.

"Oh, I don't think we are," Hilda replied off-handedly as she scooped the last of her yogurt out of the bowl, not looking disturbed at all by that bit of information.

"You're not?" Betty asked confusedly. "But…why not? You guys seemed to be hitting it off so well…"

"I just didn't get the feeling that he was really into me," Hilda replied noncommittally. "Which is too bad, because is he is super cute, and Dìos, the boy can dance," she followed up with gusto.

_There, that wasn't compromising anyone._

She observed Betty's face and was a bit disappointed that she couldn't read it better. She couldn't tell if Betty was happy to hear that, or shocked, or what.

Finally, she spoke. And Hilda wasn't even close to expecting what she said.

"Hilda, did Gio try to make a pass at you? Talk you into sleeping with him? You can tell me," Betty pressed.

"What?" Hilda asked in genuine shock. "No, of course not, he wouldn't do something like that!"

"Hilda, you hardly know him," Betty replied acerbically.

"Apparently you don't either, and he's supposedly your friend," Hilda replied in a somewhat irritated tone.

"Well, maybe if he didn't do anything wrong, you could just give him another chance..." Betty almost sounded like she was pleading now.

Hilda didn't know what to make of this conversation. Betty couldn't seem to make up her mind whether she liked Gio or thought he was a player.

"Betty, it won't work. He's not interested in me," Hilda said firmly.

"But, how do you know?" Betty persisted.

"Dìos mamì, because he told me as much!" Hilda burst out.

Betty looked confused. And speechless for a minute there.

"But…why would he go out with you if he liked someone else?" Betty asked quietly.

Hilda didn't say anything for a minute.

_Damn it_.

She just looked at Betty evenly. Betty stared back at her kind of desperately. Hilda stood up, and took her bowl to the sink.

"Betty, it's just not going to work out. Let it go," Hilda said after a minute.

She could feel Betty staring at her back for a minute. After a minute, the feeling had passed. Hilda turned around.

Betty was gone.

--

Betty had run back up to her room in a hurry. Why she felt the need to escape from Hilda of all people, she had no clue.

_It's not Hilda you're running from._

She silently damned herself three ways to Sunday for needing to be so nosy. And persistent. She should have just left well enough alone. But she couldn't and she didn't and she'd left with the distinct feeling that Hilda was trying to imply that she was somehow the reason their date didn't work out. She didn't need to hear that. She'd thought that dream was already some form of torture. Hearing this from Hilda was…well, she wasn't sure what it was, but it wasn't good, that's for sure. It seemed like her mind was on Gio these days more than Henry…was it any wonder that they seemed to be more…distant with each other? This was not how she wanted things to end with Henry. She really loved him and thought he deserved better than for her to be fantasizing about other men.

_Is this the same guy we're thinking of?_ A voice in her mind asked slyly. _The one who knocked up his ex?_

She frowned. That part had always bothered her a bit. She knew that Henry and Charlie had still been…kind of …together when this baby was conceived, but a part of her felt a bit hurt anyway; it had seemed like Henry had been so solicitous and leading her to believe that he loved her, or could love her. What was he doing sleeping with Charlie at the same time? What kind of a guy did that?

_And he's leaving…_

Well that part, at least, she understood. She knew about his own history with his father.

Just then, her phone rang. It was Henry. She looked at the little screen and waged a silent battle in her head. She didn't really want to talk to Henry, but the alternative was to sit and fantasize about Gio, which was unacceptable. She flipped the phone open.

"Hi Henry…."

--

The next morning, Betty was still feeling tired. She had spent half the night being anxious that she would be assaulted by yet another sexy Gio dream and had been afraid of falling asleep. She had wisely refrained from anything other than noncommittal 'the weather's nice' type conversation with Hilda, who had seemed just fine with that.

She took a different route to Mode this morning, figuring that she ought to just lay low for a while this…thing…with Gio had run its course. She couldn't be trusted not to say or do something embarrassing that would give her away right now.

She was staring down at the sidewalk as she walked, just barely avoiding people with the skill New Yorkers had born into them. She always found it funny that when she walked like this, just let her senses take over, she never had a problem. When she started actively trying, she got clumsy and awkward.

She heard someone yell her name and looked up abruptly. And promptly walked into a bench. She wasn't paying attention to the bench though. She looked around anxiously looking for the person who had called her, but couldn't find him. She did however, see a guy walking in front of her wearing a black leather jacket, who was just the right build and height, whose hair was just the right length.

Immediately her body responded. Her heart rate tripled, and her stomach lurched, and she ducked down as far as she could. It would be her luck to pick a different route and _still_ run into Gio, when she was so far from being comfortable with talking to him right now.

The moment didn't last long though. She heard her name again, off to the side and saw a guy standing in front of a cab, waving at a blond woman who was hurrying over to him. A feeling of relief flooded her. It wasn't her name. Well, it was, but it wasn't. She turned back quickly to where she'd thought she saw Gio, and the man was turning into a doorway farther up the street. It wasn't Gio; just someone who looked a lot like him.

This time the relief was followed by annoyance.

_How had he so infiltrated her thoughts that she was becoming paranoid?_

She stood back up and continued down the street, still glancing about warily as if he was lurking in some doorway waiting to jump out at her. She felt stupid but couldn't help it. She couldn't wait to get to the office, so she could hide from the world behind her desk.

--

As per usual the first person Betty saw when she got off the elevator was Amanda, and Betty braced herself for Amanda's usual snarky morning comment. Usually the tactic that worked best was just ignoring her, and she did so this morning as well.

"So, Betty…since you're dreaming about the Pastrami Prince's pickle, does that mean I can take Nerd Boy out for a test drive?"

Betty stopped in her tracks.

"Amanda…what?!" She immediately flushed red, and indignantly cried, "I am doing no such thing!" She was not going to think about the fact that she was more offended over the implications pertaining to Gio than Henry. She couldn't turn any redder, which she supposed was probably a good thing, because now it wouldn't gave away the lie she had just told.

_How did Amanda know? She hadn't told anyone!_

"So, have you told your 'boyfriend' yet?" Amanda asked. Betty scrunched her face warily at Amanda and asked, "Tell him what?"

Amanda arched her eyebrow in disdain. You know, that you want a large drink from Gio's. And not from the fountain." She seemed to be relishing this.

Betty panicked and shook her head furiously. "Ewwww, no I don't!!"

Amanda rolled her eyes, saying, "Oh, come on, Betty. You've fantasized about Gio being wet and we both know it."

Instantly, her face grew serious, saying "Does he look any taller when he's soaked? Because that would totally work for me."

--

"Hell-ooooo. Earth to Suarez," Betty heard abruptly. Amanda was standing in front of her with a look of supreme contempt on her face.

She shook her head vigorously, embarrassed and slightly relieved to find that it had only been her guilty conscience been wreaking havoc and that conversation had not actually taken place. She could still feel her cheeks flaming.

"You know, daydreaming about chimichangas and cheese this early in the morning can't be healthy, Betty," Amanda commented in a snide voice. "Of course, I bet you could get whatever you want down at Gio's, _at any time of day_, if you've really got to have it," she said with a wicked smirk.

"Amanda, shut up. I don't know what you're talking about," Betty said hastily and fled to the safety of her desk. That comment was a little too close for comfort.

Once there, she immediately threw herself into her chair and dropped her head into her hands. She was going crazy. That's all there was to it. If she wasn't, she wouldn't be dreaming about Gio, who wouldn't be manifesting himself at every turn, and especially in non-existent conversations with other people. Briefly she wondered if there was a medication that could help with this…her own silliness overcame her and she wondered what Gio would think if he knew she was contemplating meds over him. She suspected his ego would be beyond dealing with.

"Betty, you're here." Daniel's voice came through the phone. She looked up and saw him sitting behind his desk with a mountain of paperwork in front of him.

"Ah, yes Daniel. What can I do for you?" Gio was temporarily forgotten.

"Can you get me an everything bagel with strawberry cream cheese this morning? I'm feeling like trying something a little different today."

"Uhhh, sure…I'll go do that right now. Anything else while I'm out?"

"No, don't think…oh wait. I almost forgot. I need you to go down to Gio's and pick up the catering order for today's conference with the reps from Chanel. He can't bring it up today; he's got something else going on."

"Wha…what? Oh God, do I have to?" Betty sputtered, panic setting in, not realizing the speakerphone was still on and Daniel could hear her.

_Was the whole world against her today?_

"What's the matter Betty? I thought Gio was your friend. And they really liked his meatball subs the last time they were here- they specifically requested them actually. Don't forget to tell him that, ok?

He disconnected before she could make up something, _anything_, to get out of having to confront Gio today.

_Too soon. Too soon. You'll give yourself away. Haven't gotten my prescription yet._

She dropped her head back into her hands again and contemplated crying, but in the end decided it wouldn't help any. She was going to have to face Gio today one way or the other.

This was going to be the longest day of her life.


	8. Near Escape or No Escape?

**OK, just so ya know... this will probably be on hold for a bit until the Getty Girls contest is over (relax its not that far away!), cuz I still have a one-shot and a fanvid I'm trying to get done in time to submit along with what I have so far here. Other than that, the normal stuff...no affiliation with UB or any of its characters. Just for fun. Oh yeah, no affiliation with Star Wars either, just in case. ; ) Leave some love. Next chapter will pick up in season with 'Odor in the Court.'**

**--**

Gio had woken up this morning and gotten ready for the day in the usual way.

He had groaned when his alarm clock had gone off and flailed his right arm about in the general direction of the annoying little machine until he got lucky and the noise stopped. He had lain in bed for 15 more minutes telling himself he was 'waking up,' when in actuality he was falling back asleep. He had abruptly woken again and jumped out of bed when he realized that he had to pick Nella up and drop her off at school in half an hour.

Now he was stumbling towards his bathroom, trying to get his boxers off while in motion, which was never as easy as it looked in the sexy parts of movies. He took a shower in record time (which had long ceased being recorded, since he'd been following this routine basically since he moved out of his parents' house; now that he didn't have to fight his siblings for the facilities, he took his sweet time.) He briefly considered not shaving to save time but ended up doing it anyway. He brushed his teeth and grabbed a banana on the way out the door.

And he had done it all with Betty on the brain.

He got in the van and sat still for a minute, hoping, praying, and wishing that one day soon, he would be in control of the Betty dial, so he could just turn the damned thing off.

_What was it about this girl?_

She wasn't his normal…type, he guessed he could postulate, but she'd had his attention from the first second that they had met. He had finally admitted to the realization over the last 36 hours, thanks in part to Hilda (and man, did that ever still make him feel like the world's biggest ass), that yes, he was ridiculously attracted to her. Surprisingly, it felt good to admit it, but it sure didn't do shit for him. She still

A) Had a 'perfectly wonderful boyfriend' (his mind assigned this thought the most condescending, mocking voice over he could come up with)

and

B) Looked right through him.

Apparently she hadn't been so impressed by their first meeting. At least not positively. That was the worst part- he'd never lacked in confidence when it came to women. He liked to think he knew what he wanted, what he could get, and had no problem considering himself reasonably attractive- at the very least, he'd never had a problem getting a date before.

But this girl…she had the somewhat frightening ability to rip his ego to shreds with one well-placed sarcastic comment, if he allowed her close enough to do it. Perversely, it was one of the qualities that he most admired about her- intelligence and wit were giant turn-ons in his book. He briefly pondered his apparently huge masochistic streak.

A car driving by laid on the horn because the person in front of him was still, get this, _sitting_ at a red light waiting for it to go green. (New Yorkers took the word 'impatient' to an extreme.) Gio came abruptly out of his self-imposed pity party and started the van, checking the rearview as he did so.

Disgusted with himself for getting all worked up over a girl who didn't want to have anything to do with him, he scowled at his reflection. On top of that, he was even more disgusted that he still didn't trust how he would react to her when he saw her again.

_Well, thank Christ that won't be any time soon_…she really did only come sniffing around when she wanted something.

He glanced at the clock. 7:27.

_Shit._

He was gonna be late getting Nella to school unless he did some seriously fancy footwork. Catching sight of his (even darker now) expression in the rearview again, he made a conscious effort to fix that. Nella could be scary on top of it for an 11 year old; she still wouldn't let him live down that night at the theatre. Kept claiming that he was 'sooo macking on the chick with braces under convenient disguise' and when he tried to counter her with the whole 'just helping out a friend bit' _(Christ, you wouldn't think it should be that hard- she's only 11, after all!)_, she gave him a mysterious little smile and quipped, "The road to Hell, Gio….paved with good intentions. Think about it."

_Scary on top of it._

And he was not stupid enough to dismiss that for a minute.

--

Betty was taking her time getting over to Gio's deli, and thinking that maybe, just maybe….he might be gone for lunch or something.

_Yeah, because owners of food establishments often close up shop to go __**eat somewhere else…**_

She scowled at her own annoyingly logical thought, and clung to the hope that he might not be there. She could be too conveniently busy later to come back and Daniel would have to send someone else.

_Darn__**...**_

She reached the corner she had to turn at to get to Gio's and momentarily faltered. Peeking around it, and not seeing anything, (_seriously Betty, do you __**really**__ think Gio is waiting to jump out of a doorway at you??_) she continued on her way warily to the door. Apprehensively, she reached for the door handle, not even caring how ridiculous she must look to passersby.

_The lights don't look like they're on…maybe he's __**not**__ here…_

She thought she saw a flicker of movement inside and jerked her hand back. Her heart raced, and she expelled a deep breath.

_Damn. Freaked over a napkin_. A fan from the cooler had kicked on and sent a nearby napkin on a table fluttering.

Feeling ridiculously stupid, she reached for the door handle again, all the while attempting to sternly lecture herself, which she couldn't hear over the loud beating of her own heart. She took a deep breath.

_Stop it. It's only awkward if you let it be awkward. It's just Gio. And it doesn't even look like he's here._

She steeled herself to reach for the handle again. She hesitated.

_I can't do it. Oh, God, I can't do it._

She closed her eyes. Today it was gonna be flight.

"Y'know, the Force doesn't work on this door. I've tried it," came a familiar matter-of-fact voice spoken lowly into her ear, reaching it in almost a caress.

The feel of his warm breath on her neck gave her chills and her body reacted before her mind could; all of the fine hair stood on end and her heart rate sped back up, accompanied by a somewhat queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. This happened a split second before she screamed, whirled and nearly knocked Gio out.

He backed away, just in time to avoid a fist to the face. With a sizeable purse attached to the end of it.

"Whoa there slugger!" he exclaimed as he backed away, holding his arms up in reflex.

"GIO!! Don't you ever…" Betty broke off as she hunched over, trying to suck in as much precious air as she could to make up for those few seconds when her airways were completely restricted.

"…do that…" More gulps of air and a little coughing now. Gio watched her with a frown- she was looking pale and for all the air she was taking in, she didn't seem to be breathing all that well. He quickly unlocked the deli door and ushered her inside, pushing her down into the first chair he saw.

"…again, or I will kill you," she finished off in a somewhat wheezy voice.

Exasperated now, Gio handed her a bottle of water he'd just pulled from the cooler and said, "Betty, shut up. Just breathe."

She was still wheezing a little, and her heart rate was starting to come back down to normal, but it still felt like someone was hammering on the inside of her chest. She placed her hand to her chest in an automatic gesture.

Gio noticed and said, "Jesus, Betty. Are you all right?" trying his best not to _sound _as panicked as he was feeling.

She hiccupped- clearly her air intake had been a little too successful. She remained seated, just breathing steadily, and occasionally hiccupping, with her head down near her lap until she felt able to speak.

When she finally felt semi-normal again, she lifted her head and looked into his face. Her earlier apprehension had disappeared in the wake of sheer momentary terror. The glare she pinned him with said it all.

"Wha…Betty! I'm sorry!" he exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air, and backing away a little, just in case; She was still hanging onto the purse. "I didn't think you were gonna freak out like that, swear to God! I figured since you were standing there waiting for me-"

"I was _**NOT**_ waiting for you!" she cried vehemently. _Hiccup_. All of a sudden, the queasy feeling started to return, and she started noticing how very alone they were in the sandwich shop.

His eyes narrowed. "Oh, my bad. Since you were standing there _**NOT**_ waiting for me but debating on the exact science of how best to molest my door handle-"

"_**WHAT?!"**_ she fairly screamed. "I have not been debating molesting _**anything**_ of yours!"

He gave her a strange look at this outburst.

"Right. Well anyway, whatever you were or weren't doing, I figured you'd seen me come up behind you…"

Frustrated with herself and panicking that she had given her private thoughts away, she yelled, "And how was I supposed to do that, Gio, when I was looking in the opposite direction!

"Look. I said I was sorry. It was an accident." His face was a bit somber, like he seriously feared she wouldn't forgive him.

She looked at him across the table for a couple of minutes. Then she lowered her head, causing her hair to curtain around her face, hiding it from his view. Her shoulders started shaking. He gave her a perplexed look…was she crying?

_Hiccup._

Followed by a large squeal of laughter as she gave up trying to hide it. He let out the breath he'd been holding. That had been close; crying girls were never easy to deal with, even if you had experience, and especially when your own moral code _(or sanity in this case) _prevented you from being able to hug them.

Now she was laughing uncontrollably. The joke was lost on him, so he just let her ride it out and sat there waiting. Finally she started to wind down. She lifted her head to look at him; he was sitting there looking so somber and bewildered that she couldn't help laughing a bit more.

"I'm sorry, Gio, really…" she said as she gestured to herself in what he supposed was meant to be vaguely explanatory. She was still chuckling.

Slightly irritated now and showing it, he said, "No, no, don't let me get in your way. Why didn't I think of this before? I could have probably made a lot more money letting people just laugh at me for no reason…"

"No, no, Gio…I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing at myself."

"Uh-huh," he said in a wry and clearly unconvinced voice.

"Seriously, you scared me to death," she said in a much more serious voice.

_Uh-oh_, Gio thought. He was proud of himself up to this point; he had seen Betty standing by his door and had felt a little jump in his stomach, but his normally cool reserve had not deserted him. _Thank God for small favors. _

He really hadn't meant to scare her, but in a way, he was glad that had happened. It hadn't escaped his notice that they excelled at teasing each other into furies, but that felt comfortable. And she didn't seem as wierded out by anything as he actually felt, so he wondered what exactly Hilda had told her, if she had told her anything; the relationship between sisters was a strange and mystic thing- sometimes they seemed to be best friends and sometimes they hated each other, but in his experience they always told each other everything.

In any case, the conversation turning serious was surely the fastest way to get into trouble; he could lose some serious footing with her if he let that happen. Even though he had no clue what Hilda had shared, eventually the date would come up, he was sure of it.

_Better wrap it up._

"So, uh…what is it that you're 'not' doing here?" he asked patronizingly. Betty gave him a face and opened her mouth to reply. "Oh wait," he said, pointing at her. "Let me guess. Daniel sent you down, to get that stuff for his conference thing. Am I right?"

Without waiting for a response he remarked, "Man, I'm good."

Before Betty could even get a word in, he abruptly got up and walked around the counter and out of sight into the backroom. She watched him exit with a bewildered look on her face. Strangely, she felt like she had just been blown off. That hurt a little.

_You didn't even want to come here in the first place, why should you care?_

She frowned at her own thought. She'd gotten so worked up over having the daylights scared out of her (and their standard bickering) that she'd forgotten to be awkward around him. Now it was coming back. With a vengeance. So much so that she actually eyed the door and considered booking while he was off taking his time in the back….

--

Gio walked quickly into the backroom and headed straight for the walk-in cooler. Looking behind him to make sure she hadn't followed for any reason (_why would she? Like its standard to let random people just wander through the backroom…), _he stopped in the cooler and let out a relieved sigh. He was seriously beginning to believe all that jazz about Fate being a capricious woman, and he was really starting to think he must have seriously wronged her in a past life. Or something.

But he had successfully jumped the first hurdle-avoiding awkwardness. Well, mostly successfully. His hasty exit had lacked all finesse but maybe she hadn't noticed. Yeah, right.

_Get a grip. It's only awkward if you let it be awkward. It's just Betty._

Anyway, now he had to get her out of here before the comic value wore off. Because he really didn't want to discuss his date with her. Really didn't want to. With that thought in mind, he grabbed the bag with all the food in that he had prepared just before leaving for a few minutes earlier and went back out to the front.

"Here you go," he said as he came out of the door. "Everything Daniel wanted."

Betty jumped; he knew as soon as he saw her face that something had changed. She was fidgeting, and eyeballing the door, and as jumpy as a deer.

He didn't say anything, hoping she would just take it and give him some more time to deal with this.

Betty got the distinct impression she was being herded out the door, which under normal circumstances she would have gotten a bit indignant over. But she finally remembered that she didn't want to be here any more than he wanted her here apparently, so her indignation promptly shriveled up and played dead. She quickly took the bag from him and walked enthusiastically to the door. Thinking that might be a bit much, she forced herself to turn around before walking out. Gio hadn't moved; he was just standing there looking at her with a peculiar look on his face. Their eyes met, and they both quickly averted their gaze.

"Thanks for everything, Gio," she said, holding up the bag. "Oh, and Daniel wanted me to tell you that the Chanel people love your meatball subs. See you around!"

She gave a vague wave in his direction and beat a hasty retreat.

Gio watched Betty hurriedly leave the shop and briefly wondered what was up with her. She'd been fine when they'd been bickering, but as soon as he came out from the backroom, she'd gone all…guarded. She was acting…kind of like he felt, come to think of it.

_Had she figured him out? Not good._ His stomach dropped a bit.

He immediately felt stupid for sitting here obsessing over what she may or may not have figured out. Damn it, he was not going to revert to grade school over this; honestly even grade school hadn't been this bad. She may have her suspicions, but he was never admitting anything so it made no difference. He was a grown man for God's sake. He could deal with this. He would deal with it.

The door to his shop opened sending the bells on it into a pleasant spasm of sound. Absently he remembered that he hadn't flipped the 'Open' sign. He looked up; it was one of the regulars from the bank across the street. He pushed thoughts of Betty out of his mind.

_That way lay the path to madness, my friend…_

He gave the customer a broad smile, and walked behind the counter, grabbing his apron as he did so.

"Hey Kelly, what can I get for you today…?"


	9. Purple and Sunshine, Natch!

**A/N : So here's what you've all been waiting for...I hope it lives up to expectation coming so soon after Wooster's newest efforts. : / Sorry this one is a bit shorter than normal; the most natural break in the writing seemed to occur at this point, and several people voted for instant gratification over longevity, so I went with it ; ) The next part will probably be significantly longer.**

**Not affiliated with Ugly Betty or anything to do with it (even though I clearly need to be : / ) Just a crazy fan. Enjoy! And review. Please.**

--

Gio made his way leisurely across the lobby of the Meade building, a sandwich box in each hand. Betty had called him this morning; it was the first time he'd spoken to her in a couple weeks. Since the Monday after he'd gone out with Hilda. Thankfully, it hadn't been particularly awkward and he was hoping it could stay like that.

A couple of weeks between speaking to each other was, in itself, not horribly unusual. They weren't really good enough friends that they spoke to each other frequently.

_More like acquaintances really_.

He tried not to let that thought bring him down as he got on the elevator and pushed the button. Enough time had passed that he had been able to master his emotions concerning Betty.

_Master?_ An inner voice asked snidely.

Ok, well 'master' might be a little too strong. But he had been able to firmly corral them. At least he had himself convinced of that. He was a little concerned that all that confusion from a few weeks ago could come crashing in on his parade again, if he let it though. As it was, he was just in the elevator, and already he could feel his heartbeat quickening a bit and a mild anxious feeling churning in the pit of his stomach. But he had to face her sometime. He wasn't going to avoid her forever just because he had some middle-school crush. Just thinking about the pre-teen quotient of this attraction made him irritable. He had never had this reaction to a woman. Never.

The elevator stopped and dinged. The door opened. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and stepped out of the car, his expression and demeanor betraying none of the errant thoughts running through his head. Thanking God that he apparently didn't have to deal with Amanda this morning, he sailed past her empty reception desk (_haha, some receptionist_) and went straight towards Betty's desk. Odd, but he was already feeling a bit happier about seeing her today.

He came around the corner with a big grin, a sandwich in each hand, and said, "Got your 'wiches! Industry term…" He was _expecting_ an exaggerated eye roll and a heartfelt sigh.

What he _got_ was practically mauled. He had a split second in which to see Betty put a giant smile on her face, set something down on her desk and practically run to him, enveloping him in big 'Oh-my-God-I-haven't-see-you-in-forever' type of hug.

The first thing that struck him was just how damn good that felt. He was just a man after all, and she was hugging him as if he was the solution to every problem in her life. Simultaneously, he noticed how good she smelled. Not that she ever smelled bad, but well…this was different. She smelled _goooood_.

"Ohhh…Thank you…" she said adoringly as she pressed herself as close to him as she could and fondled him repeatedly, drawing out the hug. She was practically feeling him up, but he wasn't about to complain. And if he flexed the muscles in his back a little, it was more…uh…reactive than anything else.

_Yeah, reactive._

"Whooaa…whoa, hey," Gio said, coming back to his senses and now feeling slightly startled by her uncharacteristic actions.

"Thank you…mmm," she said again, as she continued rubbing his back while she hugged him, as if she just couldn't get enough of him.

_Yeah. That's likely. _Still, he wasn't complaining.

"So…why two…?" he attempted conversationally, not really sure what to say since she was still hugging him as if he was going off to war the next day or something. It felt kinda nice, actually. Just…not very Betty-like.

She pulled herself from him and put her hands on his upper arms, giving them a little squeeze. He may or may not have _reactively_ flexed the muscles in his arms in response.

"Because," Betty said, smiling beatifically and taking one of the sandwiches from him," one is for me," and now taking the other sandwich, she said, "and one is for Henry's care package; he's going out of town." She dismissively turned away from him then, like she hadn't just been practically trying to become part of him through osmosis, and set one of the boxes on her desk.

Figuring by the welcome that she seemed to be in a receptive mood, he said, "Ahhh…Egg salad, I should have guessed- it travels well," as he followed her towards her desk and invited himself to stay a while. She didn't seem to care that he was hanging around; she perched herself on one end and concentrated on liberating her sandwich from the box. Gio followed suit and sat opposite her, taking some time to settle in. He crossed his arms and said, "So where's Eggy heading to anyway?"

Betty lifted the sandwich to take a bite, and then lowered it quickly replying, "Tuscon- his baby sonogram." Then she proceeded to take very large bite out of her sandwich with astonishing speed.

Gio watched her movements with some amusement- she seemed very…edgy today. Full of energy and excitement. He kind of liked it.

"Mmm….Mmmm," she starting making noises, which he could only hope were meant to be good, and making faces. She hit him on the shoulder, kinda hard actually, causing him to take pause. Pointing to her still full mouth, she looked at Gio and said in a food-muffled tone, "This is really good! The flavors and pastrami…it tastes like…." Her expression turned into one of blissful concentration, "like…like purple." Gio gave her a completely perplexed look.

_Tastes like purple? What was she talking about?_

"Riiight," he commented, not really knowing what to say to that. He had no problem with hearing his sandwiches were good, but he was pretty sure they'd never tasted like purple before. She gave him another brilliant smile.

_Ok… next topic, _he thought_._

She returned to stuffing as much of the sandwich as she could in her mouth.

"Well, don't worry. Whatever happens in Tuscon stays in Tuscon," he said, smiling a little and enjoying his little distorted cliché, but not really meaning anything by it.

Betty looked right at him and said seriously, "What is that supposed to mean? Wow, these tomatoes are really good." Her attention apparently sufficiently diverted- _man, he was having a little trouble keeping up with this conversation_- she started rifling through the sandwich. Pulling out a tomato and holding it up for him to see, she said, "They're like…sunshine…"

_Sunshine? Now his tomatoes tasted like sunshine? _Before he could ponder it any further, she waved the tomato in the air and said, "We're eating sunshine," and stuffed it in his mouth, laughing to herself over her own little joke.

"Mmmm," he said, a little taken aback by having a large tomato slice shoved into his mouth. Extracting it after taking a bite, and going along with her (she was still laughing at her own witticism), he held the tomato up and raised his eyebrows in approval. She was acting kind of strangely today; not really sure where to go from there, he went back to the previous conversation.

"But, c'mon. The guy's gonna go down there to go and see his ex-girlfriend. But relax, it's not like… he's gonna get her pregnant again."

Now it was his turn to smile at his own joke. But Betty immediately became serious again.

"That's disgusting. He would never cheat on me," she said forcefully, daring him to contradict her. Mulling it over, he said, "Yeah, you're right. That's not Eggy's style."

_There, that ought to calm her down_.

But she went even more serious than before, if that possible, and said, "His name is not Eggy, its Egg Salad." With this, she went into another fit of laughter, accompanied by a self-satisfied squeal of complete mirth. Gio watched her with a strange expression on his face, thinking that she seemed…_off_ again. There was a frenetic energy about her; it was like she kept switching between normal and nutty in the space of a second. Now, he was a little worried.

"Betty, are you…ok?" he asked, voicing his concern. She completely blew him off. Not that that was a good way to make a judgment call; she did that to him pretty routinely.

"No…It's Henry. It's Henry," she said, in all apparent seriousness. She moved in a little closer to him, bringing her face just inches from his. "Is it really hot in here? Cuz I'm sweating." The moment felt surprisingly intimate, and with not much distance between them, the only thing he was really aware of was the smell of her perfume mingling with her body heat and how it was driving him wild.

He turned serious and said, "You know, for what it's worth, you smell really good."

_There, ball's in her court. _He waited to see how she would respond. Even if she had been acting a little more…receptive to him, she was still with Henry, after all. But that was a fairly neutral statement that could go either way. _She's probably just gonna blow me off like normal._ She surprised him utterly by giving him an affectionate little smile and replying, "You smell really good too."

And then, as if the moment had never existed, she jokingly slapped him on the cheek. Twice.

--

Gio walked away from his encounter with Betty with a completely muddled mind.

First off, she was throwing out some seriously mixed signals. She didn't appear to be having any problems with Henry (aside from the normal baby mama drama); she'd called him to make a sandwich for the guy's _care package_, for God's sake.

On the other hand, she'd practically mauled him on sight when he'd brought the sandwiches to her. If she'd figured him out a few weeks ago, like he was afraid she had, she sure didn't seem to be letting it bother her; she almost seemed to be encouraging his attention.

_There was that hug..._

She'd never hugged him like that. Actually, he couldn't think of a time when she'd even touched him willingly, let alone hugged him. Maybe she wasn't as indifferent as he had previously thought, he mused. And he could swear she'd looked like she wanted him to kiss her for a minute there. And she had just kept touching him…

But then she'd gotten annoyed, kind of, when he'd called Henry 'Eggy.' But not nearly as annoyed as usual. And she really was acting very strangely, even if she said she was fine; it almost seemed like someone had replaced Betty with a very life-like but erratically functioning wind-up doll. She was all over the place.

At first, he'd thought he liked it, but looking back on it now he wasn't so sure. He wondered if it wasn't a byproduct of Henry being gone, doing God-knows-what with Charlie. Not that he really thought Henry would cheat on her. Although you never knew, Gio conceded. Henry could turn out to be something of a wild card- had had knocked up his ex and Gio wouldn't have pegged him to do something _that_ interesting either.

Still, it made Gio feel kind of bad about what he'd said to Betty. He hadn't really been serious, but she might have taken it that way, especially if she was already stressing about it. That had been pretty uncouth of him- he figured he probably ought to apologize to her. He almost turned around, but suddenly remembered how strange she had been acting. The more he thought about it, the more it weirded him out.

_Maybe I'll just wait till tomorrow and she'll have…calmed down a bit. Yeah, that sounds like a plan._

Reaching the front door of his shop, he walked in and grabbed his apron off the hook. If he had known exactly how much harder his life was about to become tomorrow, he might have tried to keep himself from waking up in the morning….

**Go on, hit the review button. You know you want to...  
**

**It'll make you feel better...**

**Don't make me beg.**

**: )**


	10. The Smell of Something Wrong Pt 1

**Sorry for the delay on this update...my life has been absolutely crazy over the past few months... **

**This wasn't where I wanted to originally end this chapter, but I figured rather than keeping people waiting any longer, I would just do it in two parts. So if the ending feels a little abrupt, that's why. Also, I apologize if it doesn't jive quite right...I haven't figured out how to rectify it yet, but it just seems a little off to me. I hope you like it though : )  
**

**Hopefully, once I get settled into my new apartment and get my new laptop, I'll be able to get back to this and post the 2nd part sooner (at least before the wedding). For everyone who has been patiently waiting...(especially Stu, who is positively _languishing_ from fic update withdrawal...)**

**--**

Later that same day, as Gio was cleaning up and getting ready to make the trip home, his mother had called and invited him over for dinner. She did this often when no one else was around; even though he was one of the older children, and she was far from having empty nest syndrome, he still got regular calls from his parents to come home and eat dinner. Normally he didn't mind. It was nice to come home and not have to make yourself something to eat after you'd been making everyone else something to eat all day long. Plus, he liked spending time with his family. He was old enough to appreciate not having them around every second of the day _and_ to miss them when they weren't.

Tonight though, was a different story altogether. He was still going over the conversation with Betty in his head every 5 seconds, it felt like. For once, he had something on his mind that he definitely did not want to share with his family; Nella already knew too much, and she wasn't exactly adept in keeping her mouth shut when it counted. Besides that, he really wasn't sure how good of company he would make. But if there was one thing Maria Rossi wouldn't let you get away with, it was refusing to come have dinner at home. She had a devious way about her, where she would apologize and tell you not to worry about it, change the subject, and **BAM**! Before you knew it, you were apologizing to her, changing your plans and telling her you'd be over in half an hour. He couldn't remember a single time when he'd told her he couldn't come over that night, and actually did whatever it was he originally had planned. And his father was no help; he'd lived with the woman for 31 years and never managed to outflank her about dinner.

As usual, he had tried to make an excuse. And as usual, he had ended up at his parent's house anyway. Still in a contemplative mood, he and Nella set the table in near silence, which had to be a record. She watched him curiously throughout the process, unnoticed by him, but saying nothing.

"What's wrong with you?" Nella finally asked, bluntly.

"What?" he asked. "Nothing's wrong."

_Better make it count. She'll see right through you._

He gave her a goofy grin "What's wrong with you? Why are you screaming like that?"

She looked at him warily and tensed, ready to run. "I'm not screaming," she said tentatively.

"Oh no?" he asked, as he waggled his eyebrows at her. He lunged at her and grabbed her by the ribs, tickling her furiously. Nella started howling in between bouts of laughter. Just at that time his father walked in the room. Seeing the pair of them, he chuckled and said to no one in particular, "I thought I heard Gio come in." He sat down at the table and poured himself some water. A few seconds later, Maria appeared in the dining room doorway holding a large steaming pot.

"Giovanni! Sometimes I can't believe you're nearly 28 years old…It's time for dinner. Put your sister down."

Gio grinned at his mother sheepishly, gave Nella's ribs one last poke and let go of her. He sat down at the table and dug in, but it was only matter of time before his thoughts returned to Betty.

--

Maria watched Gio evade question after question as she tried to draw out a conversation about his day, but didn't bring any undue attention to it; he didn't seem to notice he was doing it. Or at the very least, thought he was getting away with it. But her son was not normally this quiet- she hadn't needed to hold him for more than 10 seconds after he had been born to find that out.

After a lengthy and uncharacteristic silence, Nella, who was ever shrewd but sadly lacking in tact, said abruptly, "What, no amazing story about Braces today?"

Maria, who normally would not have let Antonella get away with a comment like that, was hanging on his response but busied herself by fussing with one of the dishes of food in front of her and pretending to have missed the exchange. She had heard both of them talking about this girl before, and had her suspicions. She watched his expression carefully with downcast eyes. And saw what she wanted to see.

Gio remained silent for a few seconds, his brow furrowed, wondering what he could say. "Nella," he had eventually admonished without any enthusiasm. "Her name is Betty."

Unaware of their mother's scrutiny, Nella gave Gio a hard look and frowned, but dropped it. She might not have been so tactful, but she certainly wasn't cruel, at least not to her favorite brother.

Gio looked up in time to see his father trying to go back to eating disinterestedly, and his mother giving him a look so full of concern and pity that it made him cringe inwardly. He kept his eyes averted and concentrated on his food, and fervently thanked God that his other siblings hadn't seen fit to join them at the dinner table that night.

He knew it wasn't going to help anything in the end because his mother would wait until she got him alone in the kitchen after dinner and quietly force it out of him with the same mystical power she used to coerce you into coming over for dinner. And he would tell her, because he could tell her anything.

Sure enough, not fifteen minutes had passed after dinner when his mother found him washing the dishes in the kitchen. She was a wise woman; she knew that a man with his hands in the dishwater was a man with no easy escape. He felt her come into the room. She came up behind him and settled a hand on his shoulder. He briefly closed his eyes, wishing that this conversation wasn't about to take place. He wasn't ready to share Betty with his world; as it was Nella knew more than he was comfortable with.

"Gio," Maria said softly. She saw him close his eyes; steeling himself for the onslaught, she thought amusedly.

_So brave and strong the men in this family all think they have to be_, she mused absently, fondly toying with the long lock of hair that curled around his collar. He had tensed up a bit, but not responded. She shifted to the side so that she could look him in the eye.

"You like this girl…Betty?"

It came out more as a statement than a question. His eyes opened and connected with hers. She could see doubt, guilt and a weary sort of resignation in his gaze. It was obvious that the subject clearly pained him.

"She's the one giving you all these troubles." Another soft-spoken statement. He closed his eyes again and when they reopened, all of the earlier emotion had been shuttered.

_Ah_, Maria thought, _they don't stay children for long, do they?_

"Mom, Betty is just a friend," Gio said, doing his level best to keep his voice steady.

She gave him a sympathetic look, caressed his cheek and joked softly, "Since when is my handsome boy 'just friends' with the ladies?"

That had been the wrong thing to say- immediately, the pained expression returned to his face, and she was sorry for it. But she waited him out.

Giving her a tormented look that wrenched her heart (no mother ever wanted to see her child go through such pain), he said, with more confidence than he felt, "I'm just friends with this one. She doesn't need me; she already has a boyfriend."

His mother toyed with his hair a bit more. Even though he was 27 years old, the action still comforted him, as it always had.

"That doesn't stop you from loving her though, does it?" Maria asked simply.

Gio's heart began to pound. He had only started admitting to himself that he was seriously attracted recently; hearing his mother talk about love was patently alarming. Especially when the situation was so hopeless.

"Mom, it doesn't matter how I feel about her- she's already with another guy," he said matter-of-factly, still trying to forget the word 'love' that was flying around in his head now, and closing her out completely. "Besides, I think I said something that upset her anyway. I don't even know if she's still talking to me…"

"Oh, Giovanni. _Caro ragazzo_," Maria murmured the familiar endearment and hugged him. "Even if she does not see what a treasure you are, you must make things right between you. You will always regret it if you don't even make an attempt."

He remained silent. Maria looked in his eyes again. "The good things in life never come easy. Be patient with her, son." And with another caress on his cheek, she turned and left him to his thoughts.

Gio dropped his head and stared at his hands in the dishwater. He expelled a deep sigh, glad that his mother had said her piece and left him, but feeling more alone than ever as he watched the last rays of sunlight dance over the kitchen and disappear on the horizon.

--

Gio put it off for as long as he could, but his parents had raised him to take responsibility for his actions, and by the time the normal lunch rush had rolled around, he was feeling so guilty over his insinuations and the whole conversation with Betty the day before that he knew he couldn't take it any longer. Bowing to the inevitable (_who had he been kidding when he convinced himself he had his emotions under control when it came to her?_), he did something that no floundering first-time business owner who couldn't even afford another employee quite yet would have done. He put a sign on the door saying that he'd stepped out for 20 minutes, locked the door behind him, and made his way down the street towards the Meade building.

Even though he knew unequivocally that he was doing the right thing in going up and apologizing to her, he couldn't help but feeling apprehensive. And this was way beyond the normal apprehensive you felt when you were just eating humble pie.

He reached the front door of the building and let himself in. If ever there was a chance to turn back, this was it. But there was no chickening out of this one- dinner at his parents' house last night had taken care of that. His mother was right. If he didn't make things right between them, no matter how he felt, or how she felt, it would always be there. Looming. He couldn't deal with love and guilt at the same time.

The thought had him stopping in the middle of the lobby and running his hands over his face in disbelief.

_No, not love._ He snorted; that had sounded weak even to him. He really didn't need this right now. But standing in the middle of the lobby wasn't getting him anywhere, so he started towards the elevator once again.

His mind skipped back to last night's dinner-oh, he hadn't brought yesterday's conversation between he and Betty up. If he had been stupid enough to repeat their verbal exchanges, his father would have favored him with the reproachful look that said 'I raised you better than to speak to a lady like that, boy.' And his mother would have slapped him upside the head for sure. It hadn't been easy though- he was used to sharing things about his day with the family. But the only thing worth noting about yesterday had been his encounter with Betty, and he'd had trouble concentrating on little else. Oh, and they had noticed his lack of Betty banter, all right. Even he could tell that.

He stepped up to the elevator and waited for everyone to file out, a hole beginning to gnaw itself low in his gut. He got into the elevator and pushed the floor button without even looking at it, the anxious churning inside him demanding his attention.

_Just play it cool and be serious. She'll forgive you. She has to._

But he wasn't at all sure about that; in fact he was really downright worried about it. He really didn't know how he would handle it if she decided she never wanted to talk to him again, which he admitted she would be completely justified in doing. Especially now that he was beginning to realize how serious his feelings were. Mentally he kicked himself again for starting trouble. What had been the point?

_Nothing. You're just jealous and acting like a teenager._

Disgusted with the realization that he was acting adolescent, yet again, he tried to stop thinking about it altogether. He looked at the elevator display. Nineteenth floor. He hated how interminable the elevator here seemed some days. _Like the days when you'd stuck your foot in your mouth and didn't know if you could get it back out again_. He watched the numbers slowly climb and frowned. The roiling in his stomach was starting to subside (or he was building a tolerance to it; either way he was feeling it less, and that was fine by him), but he still couldn't shake the feeling that something just felt…wrong.

The bell finally dinged and the door opened. Gio heaved out a heartfelt sigh, and stuck both his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. He stepped out and focused only on his path, ignoring everything that came into his peripheral vision.

--

Gio strode purposefully past the reception desk, his no-nonsense demeanor attracting Amanda's attention. He was walking too fast for her to address him in her normal catty manner; she'd tried of course, but he'd ignored her completely. So she dropped the headset, disconnecting the call that had been waiting on the line, and took off after him. Following him to Betty's desk (_Where else would he be going_, she thought, rolling her eyes), she jumped behind a partition and peeked around the corner, straining to hear the conversation. Not for the first time did she catch him gazing at Betty with…_that_ look. And not for the first time did it kind of bring her down.

She didn't have a problem getting sex. But she'd never gotten _that_ look. And Betty always seemed to have men throwing it her way, even if they were just nerdy accountants or sandwich makers. Hearing the low timbre of Gio's voice, she turned off her internal thoughts and listened in earnest, wondering how much of this she could use against Betty in the near future….

TBC

**--**

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